


The Caves of Arkęh:na

by Makoninah



Series: The Caves of Arkęh:na [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Canon Non-Binary Character, Caves, Coming of Age, LGBTQ, Magic, Magical Realism, Middle Grade, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Original work - Freeform, Paganism, Psychic Abilities, Romance, caverns, gemstones, spirituality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 06:52:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 62,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15114089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Makoninah/pseuds/Makoninah
Summary: New 8th-grader Avery Marlow spends most of her time exploring the caverns near her Adirondack home. Lost in her social life, she feels quite content in her heavily explored forests and mountains. However, she becomes the lost she’s ever been not because she ends up falling into an unmapped crevasse: Her savior happens to be a curious-looking teenager who, along with about 300 others, has been secretly living within the mountains' caves for more than three centuries.





	1. The Arkęh:nen

Avery’s bike swayed from side to side as she pedaled into the earth wet from yesterday’s rainfall. The logs of her cabin home peeked between the pine, but after biking up this hill many a time, she knew it’d take several more minutes of heart-pounding biking before she could finally relax from today’s first day of school.

As she passed her favorite boulder left behind by glaciers millions of years ago, she turned her handlebars too quickly and slipped, tripping on soggy leaves. Her helmet cushioned the blow, but her legs, too long for her age, tangled between the bike pegs. Trapped, she felt her heartbeat beat against her temple, watching the sky glide above her.

Her two dogs, Oreo and Pumpkin, exploded with barks at the sound of the accident. They were sheltered inside the garage, tied around the support beam so they didn’t get loose. They had enough leash-length to sniff the edges of the unending forest. Their respective black and orange ears jumped behind the bushes outlining the property, eager to see their owner.

Avery dusted off her clothes as she eyed the windows to her three-story home. Her parents had chosen this house to feel more “rustic,” but it didn’t fit the picture at all: tall windows, decorated porches, and empty balconies. It only impressed their neighbors of squirrels and robins.

Avery waited for her parents to come outside to the commotion, maybe to see if she needed help.

Nobody came.

She parked her bike, nuzzled her huskies, and went inside.

Her mother and father were studying in their study/dining room. Sprawled out between papers, filing cabinets, and laptops, the two occupied their house with work. They had bought the extendable table for dinner parties and family reunions. In the thirteen years Avery had lived here, the only family she’d ever met were her mother’s parents, who, if you drove five minutes down the hill, were their closest neighbors. They owned a small country store on the main road.

When Avery closed the door to the garage, her father looked up. His glasses slipped down to his long nose. “How was your first Friday of school?”

“Good,” Avery said, but it wasn’t. Sidestepping around her two hungry dogs, she pulled out their food dishes from the cabinets and divided their food can into two mushy piles. While Pumpkin jumped and scratched the granite counter, Oreo waited patiently by Avery’s side. He’d gotten used to Avery feeding him, but Pumpkin had yet to become acquainted. She still thought Avery’s mother and father would find the time to feed them.

After feeding her two dogs and cleaning out her lunch bag, Avery gave the dining room a quick nod—it looked like her mother nodded back—and climbed up the stairs on her hands and knees to her loft.

She had the loft to herself, complete with a small bath and fireplace. Pictures of her younger years hung above the railing and mantle. She’d done a purge of friendly photos when she started middle school. They sat next to her fireplace, ready to be burned.

The railing overlooked their wide foyer and the front windows. Here, Avery bared witness to the start of the Adirondack Mountains. Whenever she had a troubling day—like today, like every day—she outlined what she saw of the blurry mountaintops and waited for geese to fly up to Canada.

But backpacking deep into its woods proved to be better therapy.

After her dogs gobbled up their food, Pumpkin bolted for the staircase and pawed the first step, waiting with her tail wagging.

Avery checked the Sun’s position in the sky. She had at least two hours of daylight left.

She acted fast. Snatching her hiking backpack from underneath her bed, she equipped it with two water bottles, a flashlight, extra batteries, and a pocket knife. She switched out her tennis shoes for a pair of Timberlands and changed into a longer sweater. She also nabbed her walkie-talkie from her mirror wardrobe. Her mother insisted that she carry one in case Avery’s phone ever lost signal and she found herself trapped inside a dark crevasse. It’d only happened once, but once was enough for her mother.

After checking herself in the mirror and grimacing at what she saw, Avery pulled her beanie over her eyebrows and climbed back down to the first floor. Pumpkin yipped when she saw Avery’s new attire, and Oreo, still finishing up his meal, wagged his tail at the opportunity for a hike.

“Where’re you going?” her father asked.

“Just going out,” Avery said. “I’ll be back before it gets dark.”

“You just got home,” Avery’s mother said, finally putting down her work. “Where’re you going?”

“Just my usual path,” she said, already heading for the patio door. “I’ll be fine. I’m taking the dogs, too, if that’s okay.”

Her mother went for her cane to stand up. “Do you have—”

Cutting her off, Avery dangled her walkie-talkie from the strap.

Her mother sat back down in a sigh. She pulled her pocketbook to her lap and made sure that she, too, had her walkie-talkie at the ready. She clicked it on, heard its familiar static, then put it beside her phone buzzing with work emails.

“Have fun,” her father said, “and watch out for ticks. Check yourself if you walk into any tall grass.”

“No tall grass at _all,_ ” her mother added. “You’re immediately taking a shower when you come home.”

Avery almost closed the double doors on Oreo’s black and white tail.

Maneuvering around patio furniture, Avery finally escaped for the forest. Pavement morphed into earth. Fallen leaves became her path. The scent of airy freedom welcomed her to her second home.

She’d lived her whole life here, in upstate New York. Her parents had moved upwards from Manhattan to be closer to Avery’s grandparents. This was back when Avery still slept in her mother’s belly and when her mother didn’t need a cane to walk. As her parents worked odd hours, taking long business calls outside on the balconies, Avery had spent her time climbing boulders and creating her own trails to lose herself on.

Who needed friends when the Earth welcomed everyone and anything into it? They—the trees, the streams, the caves—didn’t care about how you looked, they cared if you left only footprints. They didn’t make fun of you for wearing the same top more than once. They didn’t question the type of person you’d become. They weren’t jerks.

Twenty minutes into her walk and Avery’s feelings about school, about Bridget, faded. Walking with Oreo and Pumpkin and discovering newly formed vernal ponds, _they_ would make her new teenage years adventurous. She’d live easy like this, free of friends who didn’t care about your feelings when they knew darn well how much they meant to you.

Deep into their walk, they finally came to Avery’s favorite parts of the mountain range: the caves. Some of the cooler, deeper caves had tourist traps bitten into them, but some of smaller caves were free to the public. They didn’t have fancy waterfalls or crystals in them, and they didn’t have railings to keep you from falling, but Avery didn’t mind; she’d gotten trapped between two large rocks when she was twelve, not thirteen. Not that the one-year difference meant a whole lot, but Avery had a lot of free time to learn better since her only friend decided that her company wasn’t worth it anymore.

Something magical emanated from these small caves, though, especially when a sudden rain caught her by surprise. She’d hunker down in their entrances, watching the ground darken, discovering hidden smells birthed by the gentle patter of rain off the ancient rocks.

The cave’s temperature, like walking into a freezer, cooled instantly as Avery entered. Oreo sniffed the small grass curling around the edges as Pumpkin, hesitant, turned her orange ears to the end of the cave.

“You’ve been here before,” Avery reminded them. “It’s okay.”

The couple refused. Oreo planted his butt at the entrance while Pumpkin started licking the walls.

“No, no.” She pulled Pumpkin back and sat her next to her other half. “Stay here, then. Don’t move.”

Avery never found a justification for her fascination with caves, with spelunking, but she guessed most people didn’t. They simply crawled into the tight spaces just to say they’d done it. The quiet unfamiliarity of the echoes announced your presence to no one, yet you always felt like you were invading someone’s home.

Avery sat down on a dry spot and rolled her head back and forth on the cave’s grimy wall. She checked the insides of her socks and boots for any ticks, then took off her beanie to ruffle out her long, black hair. She studied her beanie’s pins she’d collected from middle school, like the time she and Bridget had gone to a maple syrup festival and when they survived through their favorite comic book convention. She rubbed over the nicks in the oldest one. She’d traded it with Bridget because she wanted the prettier one.

Putting back on her hat, Avery hid her eyes with it, stretching it down to her chin so she didn’t see anything. She didn’t need Bridget anymore. She’d find a new best friend in a new class. Who cared if Bridget was in almost every class of Avery’s? She didn’t care for Avery anymore, so neither would she.

Avery’s stomach growled. Moaning, she pulled off her backpack and went for one of her stashed energy bars.

The rock she’d been sitting against, once stable and firm, suddenly gave out from behind her, dropping her like a phantom step. This drop, however, didn’t have a railing for her to grab hold to.

She reached blindly for the crumbling wall only to break off a piece of limestone. She kicked out her legs to catch on something, but the ground slipped out from underneath her, and her backpack became her anchor, plummeting her into darkness.

She tumbled backwards down a decline and crushed her head on something hard. Her backpack ripped and broke away from her. Her body got pummeled by invisible stalagmites, sturdy enough not to break, unyielding enough to knock the wind out of her.

The earth felt colder here, damper with more of a mildew smell than a cave one. She didn’t know a cave existed here. She didn’t think anything existed beyond these encasing walls.

When she finally stopped falling, Avery choked on a cry. The soreness rushed her in waves, reminding her about every nerve and muscle she owned. When the spinning feeling waned, she opened her watering eyes to blackness.

Fearing she’d gone blind from hitting her head, Avery flipped open her phone.

It didn’t help. The space she’d fallen into had walls so cramped they almost touched. She couldn’t stretch out her legs. She couldn’t breathe. She looked up to see where she’d fallen from and saw no light.

Panic swelled. She couldn’t die here. Even if she somehow survived, her parents would never let her out of the house again. She’d get homeschooled, rumors would spread, Bridget would call her names again…

Avery shined her light up and down the incline, hoping to find another way out. She spotted her backpack ten feet above her, snagged on a log. Prehistoric pieces of wood were embedded into the wall. They looked like a makeshift ladder leading towards the surface. Small bug hopped from step to step. In Avery’s peripheral vision, they appeared to glow.

Something creeped up behind her.

Avery yelped and shined her phone at them like a weapon.

The person yelped back and shielded their eyes. They looked like a boy about her age, but smaller, very small. He carried with him a backpack with a lantern hooked to it by a stick, like a traveller. On his paper-thin, paper-colored skin, Avery saw grooves etched into his inner right forearm. It looked like a map carved from skin.

When Avery lowered her light, the boy squinted at her. His left eye was pale and discolored due to a scar that dug through his forehead down through his nose.

“I need help,” Avery told him. “I-I fell. I’m hurt. I don’t know where I am.”

The boy responded back with his own question in his own language. Everything from his words to his face to his primitive clothing seemed otherworldly. When he didn’t get the answer he wanted, he balanced himself on his knees and knuckles like a gorilla and sniffed her. Whatever he got from her scent, he shook his head, placed his dirty fingers in his mouth, and whistled.

A furry bat fluttered through the tunnel and landed on the boy’s arm. The boy said a few words to it, kissed its lips—it let him—then pulled out a colored rock and placed it in its mouth. After another kiss, he cast the bat back into the tunnel: a secret mission shared between only them.

Then the boy looked back at Avery, waiting for an explanation he’d never understand.


	2. The Autrean

Cameron stood stunned in the Main Exit tunnle, staring in terror at the Autrean girl. They should’ve never come here. They’d tried reading their fortune before excavating this tunnle. Their gemmes hadn’t warned them that they’d run into trouble, much less an Autrean.

Said Autrean continued staring up at them, shining that awful light. She’d finally placed it down like Cameron had begged her to do, but the light bouncing off the rock hurt too much. Cameron had brought with them a glass lantern filled with firebugs, which gave off the most necessary light to see, but this almost blinded them.

They tried asking again, “Can you stand? Can you move?” but like they guessed, she didn’t understand them. She shivered as she sat up, then hissed and pulled out pieces of rock from her hand. Blood scrapped her dark palms.

So dark, this girl. They knew Autreans as dark, like Basil, but this girl had skin and hair as black as a cave. Even though it hurt to do so, Cameron couldn’t look away from her for very long.

They had to, though. Cleaning off their hands on their poncho, Cameron squatted down beside the girl. Knowing she couldn’t speak Arkęh:nen, Cameron tried making themselves look presentable and friendly. They even waved; they heard from scavengers like Basil that that’s how Autreans showed each other kindness.

The girl spoke. Cameron shook their head, totally lost. Very little of her words mirrored theirs, and Cameron couldn’t just bring her back to the surface. Their job since childhood was and would forever be an excavator, a simple folk who gathered gemmes for the psychics to use in their practices. They hadn’t the strength to be a scavenger, they couldn’t brave the outside world alone.

Soon enough, with gentle words that went nowhere, Cameron brought the girl to her feet. Standing at her full height, she’d definitely become the tallest person Cameron had ever met, but they knew Autreans grew like trees on the surface. Something to do with all that sunlight.

Cameron turned to leave, but the girl didn’t follow. Being patient, Cameron reached for her hand.

She went to turn on her strange light.

“Wait!”

Her device blinded them yet again, and Cameron dropped to their knees and shielded their sensitive eyes. They’d already broken most of their left eye due to their first tunnle collapse when they were twelve. They couldn’t risk losing the rest of their sight. If an Arkęh:nen lost their sight, they lost their ability to be helpful to the Community, a fate worse than a tunnle collapse.

When the girl saw how light affected Cameron’s vision, she pocketed her device. She said something that sounded apologetic.

Taking her hand again, Cameron led her towards home somewhat blind.

Not that they needed sight to see. Cameron could’ve easily found their way back home with their hands bound and their ears muffled. They’d spent days in these tunnles at a time. The kaart etched onto their right arm had become obsolete as a navigating map. Now they only looked at it whenever they excavated a new tunnle. Then they’d take a knife and etch a new line down their fragile skin.

The Autrean girl, however, had difficulties. She’d hurt her leg and needed to palm the tunnle walls for guidance. Occasionally she’d smack into the low-hanging rocks. Cameron warned her whenever an upcoming one might hit her and even maneuvered her out of the way, but she somehow hit each and every one.

When Cameron reached the end of the tunnle, they carefully led the girl up the steps and pulled back the curtains to Arkęh:na.

Since Cameron had left to hunt for new gemmes, more of the ville—their shopping district—had opened. It must’ve been getting close to 5PM. Cameron had woken up earlier than usual—4:30PM—to avoid being hounded down for not being where they were supposed to be.

Beyond the ville were the stairs and ladders leading down into the underground layers of Arkęh:na. Cutting through it lived the Rivière, a long but narrow river that split the ville in half, and the Centrum, the main meeting place centered in Arkęh:na. To the right side of the Rivière was the washing pond and its waterfalls, the psychics’ underground reading space, and the artisans’ shoppes. There the seamstresses, pottery makers, cooks, and farm owners worked to keep Arkęh:na functional. A few early birds had started the day right, calling out orders to workers in the mud huts. Cameron didn’t see Basil or Maywood, which surprised them. Maywood usually kept Basil from running away from his job.

Cameron went to trot over the tiny bridge across the Rivière, but they’d lost the girl’s hand. She faltered at the Main Exit Tunnle with a dropped jaw. She took in everything, from the Centrum’s tall pillars adorned by lanterns to the ville opening up for the morning. The more she saw in the faded light, the wider her jaw opened.

When she started rubbing her arms up and down, Cameron led her to the seamstress’ huts to cool off. They avoided looking down at the psychics’ dens as they crossed the bridge. Their energy radiated through the wood into Cameron’s moccasins.

Cameron never spent too much time on this side of their Rivière. Their lack of skills had no place with so many artisans. Cameron had been gifted with the rare sense to locate and extract gemmes, but nobody cared. Cameron’s Moeder was a psychic, and a prestigious one at that. Everyone revered her for her fortune-telling skills, and when Cameron had been created, the Community had expected the same talent from them.

They’d become an excavator instead, one who caused frequent cave-ins and zapped all the energy from a gemme the moment they touched it.

Inside the mud huts, the seamstresses worked hard at their spinning wheels, threading clothes for Arkęh:na. Their silkworms buzzed with life as their balls of thread were fished from their cages. Cameron owned two outfits, both of which had been made here by caring, calloused hands.

Maywood, sitting on her usual stool, looked up to greet Cameron. Then she noticed the dark-skinned Autrean girl behind them.

“It’s okay,” Cameron said. Before she sat up and used most of her strength for the day, Cameron leaned down and kissed her cheek. She was Basil’s older sister, the more dependable child of their family.

“I found her at the Main Exit,” Cameron explained. “She somehow fell down and injured herself. I think she’s hurt, but I can’t understand her.”

To demonstrate for them, the Autrean said something in an exasperated tone. She started wandering around the kilns and pottery left out to dry. She went to touch an unfinished bowl, then thought better of herself and pulled back to admire the craft without touching it. Had she never seen a kiln before?

“You shouldn’t have brought her down here,” Maywood warned. “They’re not allowed here. You know that.”

“I know, but she’s hurt. I was wondering if you could help patch up her clothes, then I was going to find her a healer.”

A few of the artisans pulled back from their work and whispered about the Autrean girl. Cameron’s face burned in embarrassment not for bringing her into the Community, but from being talked about. Their Moeder had told Cameron not to worry about how people thought of them, but that was impossible. They wanted to do good by everyone, Arkęh:nen and Autrean alike.

Maywood scratched her thinning hairline. “When’s the last time an Autrean came here? I can’t remember.”

Cameron shrugged. They’d never seen one personally, but they’d heard the rumors. Back in the olden days, Arkęh:nen women would leave to have children with Autrean men. They still did it sometimes. Basil had been one of those children, a child born from dirt and Sun.

“This’s serious, Cameron,” Maywood said. “Should we tell the Grandmoeders about this?”

“No,” Cameron said promptly. “I can’t worry them with something so trivial. She just needs help. Are there any healers awake yet?”

Maywood went to answer, then caught sight of someone outside. “Oh, dear.”

Basil stood in the doorway of the mud hut, panting. Balls of silk clung to his bear-skin dress. It looked like he’d been trying to transfer the cocoons to the boilers for processing, but had accidentally fallen into a nest. He ripped off the sticky cocoons as he gawked at the Autrean. “What the hell is an Autrean doing here?”

It sounded like he asked the same question to the Autrean in her native tongue. Basil knew how to speak basic Autrean, but the girl still didn’t answer.

Arkęh:nen from across the Rivière sought out the source of Basil’s anger. More gossip and thoughts surfaced. They pointed, whispered.

Basil walked around the Autrean like she’d bite him, then pulled on Maywood’s shirt. “What’s she doing here?” he asked. “Did you do this?”

 

“I brought her in,” Cameron said.

“Why?” Basil asked. “Cameron, I’ve told you, they’re dangerous. Were you at the exit tunnles again?”

“Lower your voice,” Maywood told him. “It’s too early.”

“I found her at the Main Exit,” Cameron explained. “She’s hurt.”

“The Main—That’s the closest one to the Autreans! She needs to go back. I’m taking her back.”

“She’s hurt,” Cameron insisted. “We have to help her.”

“She’s  _Autrean_.”

“And we’re  _Arkęh:nen_ , and Arkęh:nen help anyone who needs it.”

Basil bit his cheek, battling Cameron on a truth they’d been taught as children. Just because he was half-Autrean didn’t give him the right to speak down upon them, and it didn’t negate their duties to protect anyone who needed protection.

The Autrean girl backed away. She kept shaking her head and repeating a phrase over and over again. Then the build-up from the fall, from Arkęh:na, and from not being acknowledged burst from her throat. She screamed and hollered and said everything trapped inside her. She pointed at Cameron, then at Maywood, then she took it upon herself to explore Arkęh:na by herself. Tripping over the bridge, she pushed through the gathering crowd and ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ✧Thank you for reading ! ✧
> 
> I post a new chapter every Saturday at 5pm EST. I make upload announcements on my tumblr ‘makoninah’, so be sure to follow me [there](http://makoninah.tumblr.com/) !
> 
> Also: This’s the first time I’ve had the confidence to post original fiction onto the Internet, so I’d love to hear critiques from you so I can better my writing for the future! Things like typos, clarity suggestions, and general grammar corrections are appreciated !


	3. The Lake

She must’ve fallen into an elaborate cosplaying festival, or a medieval reenactment. It was the only explanation for such a place existing.

With her leg twinging in pain, Avery ran for the tunnel she and the cave boy had just come through.

Strangers had collected around the entrance. Their clothes looked and smelled just like the clothes those three teenagers wore. They held knives, rolls of rope, and those lanterns filled with fireflies. They, like everyone else, whispered behind their hands about her.

Avery scrambled backwards and ran back down the length of the river. She just had to follow its current to find her way back home. When the boy had led her down here, she’d tried calling her parents to save her, but the calls hadn’t gone through. Inside these caves, she had no contact with the outside world.

Vendors from the line of shops came out and asked her questions she couldn’t understand. One even grabbed her arm and pointed at her knee.

“I don’t know!” she yelled, and barrelled through the crowd forming around her. There must’ve been another person in this cave system that spoke English. That boy covered in bugs had spoken English to her. _“Why the hell you here?”_ he’d said.

She hoped she’d never have to speak to him again. She hadn’t said a word to him, yet he’d already found a reason to hate her.

She headed for what she believed to be north towards the only other exit she saw. Next to the lantern-illuminated exit was a two-story rock building that grazed the top of the hollowed-out city. Children played in and outside the structure, tossing balls to one another and drawing in the dirt. They all wore the same garb: long, brown dresses with black pockets.

Before they prodded her with more questions, Avery ducked into the tunnel.

Darkness encased her like a coffin. She reached in front of her and found that the tunnel split in two, left and right, each direction just as dark as the other.

“Hey!”

The boy with the injured eye hobbled towards Avery. He and the bug-covered boy held out their hands to stop her. Realizing a chase had commenced, some of the adults watching over the children dropped their work to see if Avery would get caught.

Avery sucked in the cave air and chose to go right. She kept one hand on the wall and one in front of her. She stayed close to the tunnel’s curves, choosing different ways at random, before finally finding a pinpoint of light. Faint, but Avery ran towards it regardless, her only point of reference.

A wooden door covered by moss blocked her path. Fireflies buzzed around the lanterns lit not by bugs but by rocks. Tiny gemstones shined a blue light, humming gently with energy.

Avery checked around it. Like she guessed, no outlets, not power cords.

“Wait!”

The two boys ran down the tunnel. The boy with the scarred face wheezed and coughed from running so hard, the angry one looked ready to punch her.

“Don’t go in there!” he warned in English. “Not allowed!”

Casting the boy’s warning aside, Avery wrestled with the wooden door and thrust it open. The scarred boy fell back on his butt and shielded his eyes with both of his thin arms. The angry boy cursed and turned away just as Avery tried shutting the door.

The air significantly cooled, so much so that Avery questioned why she couldn’t see her breath. As the heavy door shut on its own, Avery accidentally trapped herself in a wide room filled and embedded with magnificent crystals.

The gemstones glowed in puddles, or the puddles had something bioluminescent in them that made them glow. They jutted out from the walls in stunning sizes and fragments. They lit a trail into the room, growing high on the ceilings and pillars. Avery looked for any source of real light, perhaps a skylight for the Sun to peek through, but there was nothing. Just crystal, and magic, if she dared to think.

Sitting in a line by the wall sat about six people, but people different from the ones thriving in the settlement. These elders—all women—sat in beds of furs and pillows. They wore shawls decorated in animal bones and gemstones that twinkled whenever they moved. Twigs stuck out from their greying hair and gaudy rings weighed down their bony fingers. A few young children took care of them, but something more than the presence of a crowd froze Avery to the ground.

The serene, sickly-looking grandmothers drew Avery in. They showed more dominance than her principal at school, more than her mother when a deadline drew near. With their elegance, their servants, and their age that showed their wisdom, Avery took a step back from what felt like beloved Goddesses. She’d disrupted them. She had to apologize to them.

A grandmother with blue eyes looked up. “Finally, she came down.”

One of the other grandmothers, one who could stand by herself, pointed a judgemental finger towards Avery. “Who gave you permission to enter? Why’re you here?”

Avery’s voice failed her. The power these women had slammed her against the wall. She couldn’t stand when adults got upset with her, but a grandparents’ anger equated to getting slapped across the face.

Kickstarting her voice, Avery yelled, “I’m sorry!” and ran through the room. She kept her head down out of respect and out of shame. Hopping over a stream glittering blue, she ran for the only other door in the room and pushed it open.

She began to pant. She didn’t know where else to go, whom to speak to, or how to get out of this labyrinth without conflict. Excluding those logs pressed into the incline she’d fallen from, she hadn’t found any stairs leading up.

Checking behind her to see if she’d lost the two boys, Avery tripped down a short, hidden staircase and landed hard on her shoulder. Wet dirt pushed against her mouth. She spat it out, tasting nothing but rolly pollies.

A pond lay before her, but it was a pond unlike any pond she’d come across in the forests. This one stretched out 200 feet. Quiet waterfalls aided to its lengths from high above. Pockets of water dipped around boulders and eroded stalagmites. Not a lot of vegetation grew here, but with the help of tiny pockets of sunlight dozens of feet up, grass had formed at the pond’s murky bottom. A few fish splashed away when Avery fell.

Avery dusted off her now throbbing knees and walked to someplace drier. She hiked to a small cliffside overlooking the pond. Finally alone, she curled into a hurt ball and let herself breathe.

She couldn’t. Even though she’d finally found an opening to the outside world, the air here didn’t circulate well. And she was still lost. She hadn’t proved her parents wrong. After becoming a middle schooler, Avery still felt as hopeless as she felt two years ago in her school’s bathroom, crying about who she’d become.

Quiet sniffling burned her irritated eyes.

Making sure no other cave people had come in to detain her, Avery quietly sobbed into her torn sleeves. Her emotions puddled at her shoes like the waterfalls around her. Their blubbering masked Avery’s snorts and hiccups.

Footsteps echoed across the pond.

Avery jolted upright and tried clearing her face before she got discovered.

The boy with the scarred face ended his jog wheezing. He held the side of a crystallized rock and coughed out a dry cough before detecting Avery’s tear-stricken face.

Avery yanked down her beanie to hide her eyes. She knew she ugly cried; nobody, especially a pretty boy her age, needed to see the worst side of her.

The boy climbed up to meet her. Still panting, he pushed back his bangs to see her clearly.

“I’m sorry I’m so embarrassing,” she apologized, knowing how awful that sounded when spoken aloud.

Sitting back on his butt like a child, the boy sighed and dug something out of his poncho.

Hidden against his chest shined a long necklace entangled with gemstones. Playing with one of the gems with care, he then waddled over on his knees and placed it around Avery’s neck.

It weighed down her neck with how heavy it was. Each gemstone had been wrapped carefully with grass and twine, keeping them safe. When in the right light, the facets and corners shined the colors of the rainbow.

Avery picked up a rainbow-colored gem and admired it in the limited light. “Pretty.”

The boy said something and pointed to the gem.

“What language are you speaking?” Avery asked. “ _Language_. Talking. Speech.”

The boy pursed his lips, waiting for a better explanation.

Rubbing her sore leg, she asked, “Do you have a name?”

The boy looked up.

“Name?” Avery asked.

“Name— _Naam_?” he clarified. “Cameron.”

“Cameron?” She pointed to herself; she’d heard them speak that name near the mud huts, but she hadn’t been sure. “I’m Avery. Avery Marlow.”

“Avery.” He poked her arm too hard. “Avery!”

“Yeah.”

“ _Ja_!”

“Jah?” Avery giggled, though it hurt too much. She cradled her injured side.

Cameron lost his playful smile and touched Avery’s thigh, making her jump back. He said something with grave concern, then checked behind them before taking her hand.

“Where’re we going?” she asked, and she wasn’t sure, but under Cameron’s breath, she thought he said, “The Healers.”


	4. Moeder

Cameron tried their hardest not to cough in front of the girl. The chase had burned out their lungs and their vision had gotten blurrier than usual, but they needed to help this girl, Avery. Parting from their personal gemmes always stung, but they’d worked their wonderful magic yet again. They’d gotten Avery to stop crying. She was smiling.

Sitting up slowly so their vision didn’t blot out, Cameron took Avery’s hand and led her away from the Lake. They’d never entered the Lake Den without being given a task or errand to run. They weren’t a water cleanser, so they had no business around so much pure water. They knew their way around sure enough, but they couldn’t help but trace the thin lines making up their kaart, wondering when they’d walk this path again.

Avery pointed to the scars.

“My kaart,” Cameron explained. They wanted to go on describing such an important part of themselves—literally—but they withheld themselves. She wouldn’t understand. The kaart was carved into each Arkęh:nen’s arm at thirteen so they never got lost. Families around the Community would celebrate the momentous milestone with fresh meat and candles for everyone to enjoy. After their disastrous cave-in, Cameron had earned theirs a year earlier than most. Not many neighbors had celebrated with Cameron and their Moeder. Basil and Maywood had, though. They’d shared a gutted squirrel together.

Not knowing how to explain all of that to Avery, Cameron just said, “It helps us get through the tunnles so we don’t get lost.”

“Oh,” Avery said.

Cameron led her out by hand, away from the Lake. And the _Grandmoeders’_ Den. A shiver crawled up their neck. Avery, an _Autrean_ , had barged in to the Grandmoeders’ Den without knowing about their culture or their laws. Luckily, Cameron had shielded their eyes quick enough. Seeing the Grandmoeders without being called down would brandish you with shame for the rest of your life. Hopefully the Grandmoeders would be lenient with Avery’s misdoing.

Like Cameron thought, a crowd had begun to form around the tunnle entrance. The Community held up firebug lanterns and glowing gemmes to see them better. They asked Avery questions and touched her long hair. Each time they got too close, Avery ducked away.

“She’s scared,” Cameron told them. “Please don’t do that.”

“Where’d you find her, Cameron?”

“Did you bring her down yourself?”

“Do the Grandmoeders know?”

“Did any psychics predict this?”

Not wanting to stir up any rumors, Cameron nudged themselves out of the crowd and headed home. People less overbearing but equally snoopy peeped around the ville shoppes to get a better look at the Autrean girl. One woman, Claire, a friend of Cameron’s mother, came out not with questions but with a jar of her famous honey wrapped in a blade of river grass.

“Here, take this,” she said, handing it to Cameron. “It was collected earlier this morning and purified by the psychics. It should help calm you and her down.”

“Are you sure?” Cameron asked, noting how heavy the bottle felt.

“Yes, but be quick. The energy’s tense here. People are whispering. Best to use this in a secluded, calming spot, and drink it slowly and meaningfully.”

“I will. Thank you.”

Claire gave an acknowledging nod to Avery before running her hand through Cameron’s poofy hair. “Take care, Cameron.”

“Thank you,” they said, and ran down the nearest rock staircase. The steep steps took Avery by surprise—she grabbed hold of Cameron’s shoulders to keep from falling—but Cameron supported her and escaped to the second level of Arkęh:na.

Their dens had been built down here more than 350 years ago by their brave ancestors. Racism, slavery, and war had driven them down, away from so much evil plaguing the Autre world. As the decades passed and war between Indians and pilgrims advanced, those who still weren’t safe began to dig deeper. Word about this lifestyle became favorable to those seeking freedom, and so their ancestors kept digging until reason to communicate with the outside world shriveled up. They blocked out the entrances and nobody went looking for those they saw as outcasts. Soon their existence faded away like a bedtime story’s origin.

Cameron was a sixth generation Arkęh:nen and prided themselves on keeping up their heritage. Everything their ancestors had given up for Cameron’s safety weighed down on their every move. This meant taking care of everyone who needed help.

It was why they’d chosen the pronoun “they,” a distinguished yet slightly outdated pronoun only the most dedicated Arkęh:nen used. Instead of being a “he” or a “she,” becoming a “they” meant that everything you did affected those around you. You became the Community you were so entwined with. When Cameron had first learned about this, they’d proudly announced to their classroom to call them a “they” instead of their old pronoun.

Each den had decorative drapery acting as their door. Some had animal pelts: sewn-together furs of squirrels and rabbits. Some, like Cameron’s den, had an antique blanket a Grandmoeder had sewn for them in their spare time. Whenever Cameron passed by it, they rubbed the soft, ancient fabric, feeling the energy their own birth Grandmoeder had put into it.

Cameron basically lived by themselves. Their Fader had died when they were four and their Moeder barely left the psychic den. With extra room, Cameron had filled their 100-square-foot space with gemmes. Gemmes in boxes, gemmes standing upright against the dirt walls. Over the course of their life, Cameron had excavated around 2,000 gemmes, but had only kept around 200. The rest became gifts of kindness for the Community.

When Cameron draped their quilt back over the door, they escorted Avery inside of their bed, a hole cut deep into the rocky floor. With her size, she could’ve easily rested her chin on the edge, but she didn’t. She instead pulled herself into a ball and sat quietly in one of the jagged corners.

Cameron offered her the jar of honey. “You can eat this to calm down.” They pretended to drink down the bottle. “ _Eat_. It’s good.”

“ _Eaten_?” Sniffing its top, Avery tipped her head back to taste it.

She dropped the bottle and pointed above her in horror.

She had her eyes set on Cameron’s bat, Nuvu, who was hanging upside down on the metal mesh Basil had scavenged for them and hammered into the wall. The gemme she was supposed to deliver to Maywood announcing the arrival of an Autrean was still in her mouth.

“That’s my bat,” Cameron explained. “Nuvu.”

Introducing herself, Nuvu dropped the gemme on Avery’s head and chittered at her.

“ _Nuvu_?” Avery asked, picking up the gemme.

“Yeah. She kind of hates people. I’m not even sure if she likes me.” They took back the gemme. “Do Autreans even know what bats are? They only live in caves and only like Arkęh:nen.”

Avery shrugged and lapped the hardened honey circling the top of the jar. It reminded Cameron of how Nuvu ate honey, but with her wide eyes and scratched face, she looked much cuter and less likely to bite one of Cameron’s fingers.

“I want to learn more about you,” Cameron confessed. “We’re not allowed to talk to Autreans if we ever see one in the wild. I’ve never even seen one before. Basil’s half-Autrean, but he was born and raised here.”

Avery nodded and pulled something out of her pocket. Before Cameron could ask, that bright light blinded them yet again.

“Sorry!” Avery lowered the brightness, but Cameron still needed to squint to see. Basil had told them stories about these bright glasses. Autreans called them “fones.”

Avery tapped something on her fone and showed it to Cameron.

Even though it hurt, Cameron moved up closer to see the moving picture. It was of a blue and green orb surrounded by darkness. White—clouds, maybe—stretched around it as it spun like a ball.

“Cool,” Cameron said in awe. “How’s it doing that?”

Avery clicked her fone and a new picture popped up, one of green trees and mossy logs: her world. The Autre world.

Biting their lower lip, Cameron took the fone and kept scrolling. They weren’t allowed to enter the Autre world, but could they see pictures of it? They hoped so, because they’d never, ever felt this much joy from something outside of Arkęh:na. These pictures didn’t move, but it didn’t matter. The endless rivers not cut off by rock, the flowers growing with help from the Sun. How far did the sky stretch? How tall did the trees grow? Arkęh:na had its tight-knit charm, but this was world-altering.

As they frantically searched for more pictures, Cameron stumbled across a picture not blessed by earthly qualities, but by graphite.

They’d come to understand an Autrean’s way of writing. Having neither the tree supply nor the light for it, Arkęh:nen hardly ever wrote, but from time to time, scavengers would sneak back papers for the Community to see. They always gathered a crowd whenever a book came down.

In these photos, it seemed like someone had taken pictures of drawings. The sketchy, smudged people had been drawn with exaggerated features, particularly in the eyes and hair. They all looked sad for some reason, but beautiful nonetheless.

Stammering, Avery yanked back her fone and hid away the pictures.

“Did you draw those?” Cameron asked. “Avery, you?”

“Yes, me.” She filtered through the pictures much quicker, as if too shy to show off her own work.

“Can you teach me how to draw?” Cameron insisted. “Can you draw me? No Arkęh:nen is good at drawing, and these are incredible!”

Avery beamed red. She blushed so easily that Cameron couldn’t stop themselves from feeding her more praise.

Cameron’s curtain pushed back. Basil stood in the open doorway, panting. He’d finally freed himself of all those silkworms, but he still looked upset, especially when he saw Avery sitting in Cameron’s bed.

“Basil, do you know how these fones work?” Cameron asked. “Avery’s an artist. She has drawings—”

“Your Moeder,” Basil interrupted, “she’s on her way. She found out, and she’s looking for you.”

Before Cameron could react, Basil looked down the corridor, choked on his own spit, and ran away.

The curtain parted once more.

Cameron’s Moeder, one of the most paramount psychics in all of Arkęh:na, stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips, glaring down at Cameron and Avery.

“I knew I shouldn’t have left you alone this morning,” she said. “Bring her here, then. I’ll deal with her myself.”


	5. The Grandmoeders

Whatever mood Avery had created with Cameron died when the woman walked in. She looked like a mom, so nothing like Avery’s own mother: wide hips, shoulder-length hair, a somewhat wrinkled face. She wore a poncho similar to Cameron’s, but around her waist like a skirt, and she wore more gemstones than he did. The rings on her fingers looked like they cost a grand each.

The woman leaned her head out of the room, yet didn’t take her eyes off of Avery. “ _Basil_.”

At once, Basil, the silkworm boy, ran back and bowed his head.

The woman said more to Basil in their shared language, then invited herself into Cameron’s room.

Cameron scampered out of his bed/hole so the woman had a place to sit. She took it graciously and sat legs folded in front of Avery, and a sense of drowning filled up the hole. Not even Avery’s own mother’s anger commanded so much from Avery, with those stern eyes and unblinking stare. If this woman had told Avery to run out of the hole and never come back, Avery would be sprinting away before she’d finish her demand.

Cameron and Basil squatted at the edge of the bed hole like gargoyles, waiting for the woman to speak.

The woman started speaking. Once she finished, Basil said, “Uh, this is…Moeder of Cameron, Moeder Ellinor. She is great psychic, the best. She will help.”

“Are you translating for her?” Avery asked.

“I have to,” he said. “I shouldn’t, although. You cannot be here.”

Moeder Ellinor started speaking again, quieting Basil. She reached out for Avery’s arm and pushed up her sweater to examine the bruises. While talking, she took out an old container of paste and spread it over the gnarlier wounds. Avery couldn’t tell her to stop, mostly because she trusted this “Moeder’s” actions.

What felt like a bumblebee stung directly inside of the wound.

“Ow!”

Moeder Ellinor kept a firm hand on Avery’s wrist, keeping her from pulling away.

“It has to sting,” Basil interpreted. “Mushroom medicine, it’s fine.”

“But mushrooms are poisonous.”

Basil sneered. “You think we know not about mushrooms? We’re more smarter than you Autreans.”

Cameron asked something to his Moeder.

Moeder Ellinor shook her head, then checked Avery’s forehead temperature with her forearm. She too had scars marking her inner forearm, although hers was faded.

“She…wants you to see that…you’re mysterious,” Basil explained, then muttered something under his breath that made Cameron hit him. He continued, “However…you are welcome here, in Arkęh:na.”

“ _Ar-kay-nah_?”

“This, our home, us people. You should…not stay long, although. Most— _All_ —Arkęh:nen hate Autreans, you people from the surface. We help…everyone, although we shouldn’t.”

Moeder Ellinor snapped at Basil, hushing him up. He even covered his mouth so he didn’t disrespect himself in front of this profound woman.

Moeder Ellinor spoke directly to Avery.

“She asks if you hurt in more places,” Basil said through his hand.

“No,” Avery lied, still feeling the pain from the paste, “but thank you for helping me.”

Basil tried interpreting to Cameron and the Moeder, which Avery deduced meant “mother.” She did look a lot like Cameron, but Basil acted as if she was his mother as well.

Moeder Ellinor rubbed the top of Avery’s hand, addressed something to Cameron, and began to stand.

A soft bell dinged throughout the room. It ran above Cameron’s door. The string attached to it was getting yanked by someone impatient.

The three cave people bolted upright and stared at the bell until it stopped. They didn’t say anything, they didn’t react. They waited as if to hear dire news from a primitive air raid siren.

“ _Crap_ ,” Basil whispered.

Moeder Ellinor jumped out of the bed hole and jogged out of the den.

Cameron, shaken, helped Avery out as Basil cursed in more broken English.

“What does the bell mean?” Avery asked.

“The Grandmoeders call us,” Basil said. “This is trouble. We shouldn’t be doing this. Bad—” He complained more to Cameron in their language, but Cameron didn’t listen and held Avery’s hand tighter, assuring her that everything would be fine. It didn’t calm her down.

Avery tripped trying to keep up with Basil and Moeder Ellinor. Cameron took smaller, nervous steps down the ladders and through Arkęh:na’s halls. Families looked out of their homes to watch them go. Many of them quickly peeked out of their curtains, the hid themselves so as not to be caught ogling.

They climbed back to the second floor, Moeder Ellinor acting as their leader. Now more people than ever—almost three hundred—stood around in the shopping district, gossiping and pointing out Avery as she ran. Avery tried to hide her face, but Cameron took her hand and led her towards the tunnel leading to the grandmothers’ home, the “Grandmoeders” as Basil called them.

An attendant who’d been catering to the Grandmoeders hid behind the moss-covered door. They whispered secrets to Moeder Ellinor, then glared at Avery as they passed over their lantern. Likely ordered to do so, they creaked open the door and escorted them inside.

The eldest Grandmoeder, the one who’d first talked to Avery when she’d stormed through, raised her bony hand. Half of its weight must’ve come from all the jewels and bracelets weighing it down. “Come in.”

They all moved forwards as if on a conveyor belt. Basil, however, was stopped at the door, unable to enter by the Grandmoeders’ henchmen. He didn’t argue, but he looked scorned when the door closed on his face.

Somehow, entering the Grandmoeders’ Den with purpose made Avery more nervous. Now three out of the five Grandmoeders sat up in their elevated beds, while the other two stayed wrapped in their heavy quilts. Avery couldn’t see their faces. They looked asleep, or dead.

Cameron and his mother knelt before the Grandmoeders, Moeder Ellinor with grace, Cameron with some difficulty. His knees kept cracking.

Avery copied with little instruction. The stream trickling through the room encircled them like a prison cell, keeping them from moving around too much.

“ _Raise your heads._ ”

The Grandmoeder spoke in Arkęh:na’s language, whatever they called it, but it sounded similar to English, enough for Avery to follow.

The kind Grandmoeder smiled down at them, while the other two cast down scowls. The one who’d yelled at Avery to get out had a bulging vein in her wrinkled neck.

“Welcome to our home, Autrean,” the nice Grandmoeder said in English. “My name is Grandmoeder Geneva. I see you’ve met my daughter Ellinor and her child Cameron.”

At hearing their names, Moeder Ellinor and Cameron bowed their heads even deeper.

“Yes,” Avery said. “Thank you for taking me in.”

“Company is good for the soul. It keeps it less lonely. As you might’ve guessed by out Community’s reaction, we don’t get many Autreans down here very often. It came as quite a shock, being that the day has just started for us. I ask you this: How did you happen across our settlement?”

“I tripped,” Avery said, keeping her voice steady. “I was resting my back against the wall and it caved in. That’s when Cameron found me. He helped me.”

The Grandmoeder next to Grandmoeder Geneva grumbled something.

“My friend wishes to address,” said Grandmoeder Geneva, “that the pronoun you use on my grandchild is wrong.”

“Huh?” Avery asked.

“Cameron Quinn is neither a boy nor a girl, neither woman nor man. They have chosen to call themselves by the Community’s multiple pronoun of ‘they’. They are a ‘they’, you see, not a ‘he’, so be sure to know that when addressing them properly.”

Avery looked to Cameron, who must’ve heard his name and was now waiting for translation.

Avery had never known anyone go by a different pronoun than the pronoun they looked like. He looked like a boy. Had she gotten it wrong again?

Sudden embarrassment welled up inside of Avery as she lost the strength to look at her new friend.

“Nevertheless,” Grandmoeder Geneva continued, “we’re happy you’re here. Interaction between us and Autreans is limited, so any new encounter is recognized.”

“May I ask something?” Avery ventured. “I don’t want to step out of line, but how, I mean, _why_ do live in caves? How long have you been down here?”

“We have been here for generations, ever since the pilgrims voyaged across the ocean in search of new land. Our ancestors hid themselves within the rock to avoid persecution for being themselves. As time grew, we decided it’d be best to stay away from the surface, to keep our heritage safe.”

“Do the surface people—us Autreans—know about you?”

“You’re the first of your generation to visit us. We’ve had a few Autreans find our caves, but they had malicious intentions, and we drove them away.”

“Best of her to keep this secret to herself,” seethed the angry Grandmoeder. “You shan’t be telling other Autreans about us, do you understand?”

“I-I won’t say anything,” Avery said. “I don’t have any friends, so I have no one to tell.”

Grandmoeder Geneva smiled. She had no teeth. “Is that true? Do you really have no friends?”

“Yeah, and my parents don’t care about what I do, so they won’t care where I’ve been.”

“I don’t believe that’s true,” she said, and beckoned for one of her servants. They brought her a bag.

“My backpack,” Avery said.

The servant gave her another object crackling with energy.

“My walkie-talkie.”

“Such a curious machine,” Grandmoeder Geneva said, playing with the attanae between her fingers. She gave it back to the servant, who rushed it to Avery. “However separate you are from your parents, I’m sure they must be waiting for you.”

Avery checked her phone. It was nearly six. “I think you’re right.”

“Before you leave, though, I must tell you one more thing: Your presence here has affected our Community in a way we haven’t felt in a long time. Some of us”—she nodded her head to the angry-looking Grandmoeder—“still hold prejudices against Autreans, but I believe you can help us see a light we haven’t basked in for several centuries. May I ask, if you wish, that you come by once more?”

 

Avery lifted her head. “I can come back?”

“If you wish to learn more,” she said, then smiled just as widely as Avery did.

“Okay,” Avery said, somewhat out of breath. “I’d love to. This place is incredible—you’re all incredible.”

“You’re quite kind,” Grandmoeder Geneva said. “Now, your parents must be worried, as I believe it’s late in Autrean standards.” She turned to Cameron and Moeder Ellinor and spoke to them in their language, something Avery now wanted to learn more than ever. They both nodded with everything she told them, then stood up at the exact same time when she finished speaking. Cameron’s Moeder went to the Grandmoeder’s bedsides so they could whisper more discreetly.

Watching, Cameron took Avery’s hand yet again. He was a very physical person.

Or she.

Or they.

The crowds outside had finally receded into the villages and Cameron snuck Avery back into the tunnel they’d first met without hassle. Clumps of dirt from when she’d fallen now collected at the bottom. Someone had pushed the boulder back into place. Now only Cameron’s lantern provided them light.

The two of them stood there, waiting for either Avery to start climbing or for Cameron to leave. Neither moved.

“I’m sorry if I got you and your mom in trouble,” Avery said. “Were those your elders or something, like a counsel? The Grandmoeders?”

“Grandmoeders,” Cameron said. “Yes.”

“I wish I knew your language. I could teach you English and you can teach me…Arkęh:nen.”

At that special name drop, Cameron smiled.

“Well.” Avery bit her inner cheek. “Bye.”

Cameron pointed to Avery’s chest, and only when Avery looked down did she realize they were pointing to their necklace and not something else.

“Oh. Sorry.” She went to give it back, but Cameron stopped her. Shaking their head, they let Avery keep the heavy necklace with hesitant hands, as if they didn’t actually want to let them go.

“Are you sure?” Avery asked, to which Cameron nodded, but if they understood her, she didn’t know.

Neither of them moved. In the darkest light, they stood still knowing this might’ve been the last time either of them saw their kind again.

But that wasn’t true. She’d promised to return to these interconnected tunnles as many times as she could. Her parents would question her extended visits into the woods, but she’d think of an excuse later. Like she could tell them about everything she’d just uncovered.

Avery’s cellphone vibrated in her hands. Her mother texted her asking where she was.

Being the catalyst she needed, Avery gave Cameron one last wordless look before she left up the ladder.


	6. Reality

As Avery climbed out of Arkęh:na, her heart picked up where it’d left off. Darkness had fallen through the forest and she couldn’t see or hear either of her dogs. She’d totally forgotten about them. Ever since the fall, all of her thoughts and emotions had gotten scrambled, like she’d been in a haze until she resurfaced to the real world.

As she placed the rock back into place, she looked around the empty, suddenly uninteresting cave for help.

A loud barking echoed throughout the cave, and before Avery made sure it wasn’t police dogs searching for her missing body, Oreo barreled into her. He got so excited with his kisses that he nipped her hat off of her head.

Avery used her remaining strength to push him off and stand up. “Where’s Pumpkin?”

Oreo nuzzled Avery’s hair. His fur was slick with rain and mud.

Finally outside the cave, Avery’s walkie-talkie sparked back to life. She walked in circles for reception. “Mom?”

She waited about three seconds before she heard a crash. “Avery? Avery, is that you?”

“I’m here.”

“Where’ve you _been_?” her mother almost shouted. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for almost an hour! Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Then come home! It’s supposed to rain any second—I’m watching the weather channel right now. Get home!”

Avery stared at her walkie-talkie as droplets of rain dripped off the cave entrance. After about ten minutes of processing, she made sure she had everything stored safely in her backpack before jogging back home. Oreo, finally with his owner, trotted faithfully behind her.

She started at a slow pace, but soon found herself running, her fingers wound up around Cameron’s necklace. She ran through streams she’d usually avoid, jumped over rocks she’d normally walk around. She didn’t care who saw her as she laughed hard enough for rain to land in her mouth. Instead of complaining about the rain, her parents’ fury, or Arkęh:na, Avery laughed at the thought that, for once, she’d finally found a friend who wouldn’t know about her past.

She got home ten minutes later than normal.

Pumpkin barked in the garage. She’d tipped over her water dish and spilled it across the cement floor. Oreo met with her in nose snuggles and bites at her white paws.

Avery caught her breath outside of her home. The garage lights were left on either for her or for her father who might’ve been doing yard work. Whatever the reason, Avery grabbed hold of her two dogs, turned off the light, and came home.

Her mother and father were exactly where she’d left them: her mother at the dining room table, her father in the kitchen. But both of them weren’t working. They had their phones in their hands, pacing. Her mother balanced all of her weight on her cane as she made her way towards her daughter.

“Sorry,” Avery said.

“Why was Pumpkin here before you? Where were you? Why didn’t you pick up?”

Avery dared to look down at her phone, but she couldn’t break eye contact with her mother. “I…found this pond. It had, uh, koi in it. I was wondering who they belonged to and went door to door. I was so busy talking with this one woman, I forgot to call in. My walkie was in my…bag.”

Avery’s mother checked her daughter’s torn leggings. “You’re hurt.”

“I tried to get a closer look at the koi, but I tripped on the rocks and fell. I think that’s why my walkie-talkie wasn’t picking up any signals.”

“Let me see it,” her father said. “I’ll work on it tonight and get it fixed.”

“Why was there koi fish in the forest?” her mother asked. “Who did they belong to?”

“I’m not sure. I think they’ve been living there all alone for years. There were so many of them, I think they just learned to live in the wild.”

“Well, koi fish live an awfully long time in the wild,” her father said.

“When have koi fish ever been able to live by themselves?” her mother asked, but went towards the dining table, back to work now that her daughter had flown back to them.

“We already ate,” Avery’s father said, “but I’ve sectioned up the leftovers and put them back in the fridge. Yours is on top.”

The fresh taste of Arkęh:nen honey still lingered on Avery’s tongue, but she couldn’t go to bed without eating something. After washing her hands of cave dirt and seating her two dogs on their signature cushions, Avery made herself a plate of cheesy potatoes and lamb. Avoiding any more questions about her totally unbelievable story, she ascended up the stairs to her room.

She bit her knuckle as she jogged in place. A thousand questions and hypotheses ran through her head and escaped through her ears. Abandoning her food on her bedside table, Avery kicked off her boots and clothes and jumped into the shower to clean off any ticks.

How did showers work in Arkęh:na? The caves smelled a little like smelly armpits, but all caves had their own special tang to them. Maybe they showered in that lake, which they then streamed out of the caves so they didn’t accidentally drink it. Did they repurpose it? Did they shower outside in secrecy so no surface person found them? Did they even shower at all?

Were there more communities like Arkęh:na throughout America?

Were they safe?

Were they okay?

Head swirling with possibilities, Avery faceplanted in bed, her hair still damp. The Grandmoeders had told her that she’d been one of the only teenagers to have discovered Arkęh:na. If so, how many people on the internet knew as well?

Wiggling towards the edge of her bed, Avery unearthed her laptop hidden between her boxes of memories. As it booted up, she couldn’t stop playing with Cameron’s gifted necklace. The twine felt as sturdy as metal, and each of the gemstones seemed to shine with magic. There’d been so many gems in Cameron’s room; had they polished these gems themselves?

Searching for ‘CAVE PEOPLE’ felt too wide of a net to cast, but typing in ‘CAVE PEOPLE HISTORY IN UPSTATE NEW YORK’ worried Avery; what if the government had begun tracking her and was now monitoring her internet history?

Rolling her fingers over the trackpad, Avery typed in the question she wanted to know most: ‘IS THE PRONOUN ‘THEY’ A VALID PRONOUN FOR A SINGULAR PERSON TO USE?’

It was.

Then she asked: ‘HOW DO YOU COMMUNICATE WITH SOMEONE WHO SPEAKS A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE THAN YOU DO?’

With the amount of information she suddenly had, Avery took out some spare paper and wrote down everything she could. Within ten minutes she’d written complex essays and theses that put her English grades to shame. She found famous hermits living in caves, but they were nothing compared to Arkęh:na. She found Amish towns and African tribes that reminded her so much of the Community, but different. Little bits of cultures from all around the world had been mashed together to create what Arkęh:na had created for itself.

 

Just as Avery started her third page of notes, a corner of her computer brought up a pop-up screen. She went to close it, thinking it a virus, then saw the username.

xxCrossingRiverxx07.

That username, that profile picture of a wilted rose, Avery had nightmares about them. It’d once been a godsend to her to see that username come up during the late hours of the night. Now she could barely look at it.

But she couldn’t help but check on Bridget’s statuses and moods illustrated by a tiny emoticons.

Today, she’d dropped another song quote with a puzzled emoticon beside it.

A conversation dinged underneath Avery’s username.

 

_Hey._

_Was what you said to me this summer true?_

 

Avery made sure not to start writing so Bridget wasn’t aware that she’d seen the message. With Arkęh:na and Cameron and everything that’d happened, Avery had forgotten about the real world and the very real threat that tormented her at school.

She summoned up her courage just like when she’d faced the Grandmoeders, then utterly deflated upon seeing Bridget online again. They had to start talking again. They had to.

Avery typed:

 

_I’m sorry. You can forget about what I said._

_We can just be friends again._

 

Bridget already started typing before Avery hit SEND.

 

_It’s been messing me up._

_I can’t forget._

 

Avery tried to type up a response to reassure her, but Bridget typed quicker.

 

_Are you really gay?_

 

Avery stared at those four simple words, words she’d been too scared to think about since last summer. She’d tried to keep it a secret from everyone until her, her Bridget, her best friend since kindergarten, had asked if she liked anyone. Avery had given her the answer, and the following day their friendship died out like a wet match.

Avery shut her laptop and buried herself into her blankets, praying that when she awoke, she’d be back in Arkęh:na.


	7. Friends

For the first time in their life, Cameron eagerly awaited for a friend.

Not that they were a particularly unfriendly person. Rather, Cameron knew they’d inherited their mother’s care and their father’s awkwardness, leaving them in a tidepool of unease. And most Arkęh:nen knew about Cameron’s lack of magical talent; whenever Cameron could offer their help, nobody wanted it.

Avery was different. Avery didn’t know about Cameron’s faults.

Instead of putting all of their energy into gemme hunting, Cameron waited right next to the Main Exit Tunnle with extra bright firebugs. They wanted to be the first one to greet Avery once she returned, to keep that spark between them alive.

Two days passed and the firebugs slowly flickered out.

After the second lonely night came and went, Cameron let their bugs rest and sulked back home. Never before had they waited on somebody like this before, so anxious to meet someone new. Their Fader’s death and their Moeder’s distance left Cameron finding their own devices for entertainment. They had exploring, gemmes, and family friends, but they’d never explored beyond that. They’d never explored outside of Arkęh:na.

Yawning shopkeepers began putting away their wares and kissing their neighbors goodnight. The Centrum had cleared out of restful teens and the artisans had doused out their cooking fires. Claire had just boarded up her honey shoppe when Cameron passed by. Cameron had been keeping the honey jar she’d given them had Avery ever returned, but it’d been two days. Others needed the delicacy that Cameron was holding onto so selfishly.

Claire waved Cameron over. “You’re still up?”

“Yeah, I can’t sleep.” Cameron pulled out the honey bottle. “Here. Avery didn’t drink it all.”

“You don’t want it?”

Cameron did, but instead they said, “Somebody else can have it. Do you need help packing up?”

“Cameron, I’m fine, and take it. You _were_ the one who introduced an Autrean here. I’ve heard the Grandmoeders are quite interested in her. You’re making them very happy.”

A prideful dizziness clouded Cameron’s head. “I’ve heard.”

“I’ve never seen your Grandmoeder so energized. You must be quite proud.”

Cameron touched their face, hiding their bursting ego. Arkęh:nen dreamed of being minor influences to the matriarchy. To think the Grandmoeders were thinking of them in a positive light and not as an annoyance made Cameron’s heart beat faster than usual.

A clatter erupted near the Centrum. Shoppe owners jumped with their boxes in hand.

Cameron frowned. They only knew a few people who’d desecrate the peacefulness of the Centrum with needless aggression.

Basil had a boy named Patchway on his back. Maywood was on her knees trying to pull Basil back, but it seemed like a fruitless endeavor.

Storing the honey in their poncho, Cameron ran over to Basil and said, “Basil, knock it off.”

At Cameron’s voice, Basil let the boy go, watching as he hopped off the steps and ran away.

“What’s been the matter with you lately?” Maywood asked him. “He didn’t _do_ anything to me.”

“He pushed you!” Basil said.

“I knocked into _him_. It was an accident.”

Cameron helped Maywood back on her wobbly feet, then handed her her fallen walking stick. She’d been born with too long of limbs, giving her a small hunchback and legs that tired out quicker than Cameron’s.

“You gotta stop letting people walk all over you,” Basil said. “I’m not always gonna be here to—”

“To protect me?” Maywood asked, arching her eyebrow. “How did that protect me?”

Sputtering, Basil took off towards the silkworm huts, his arms bent at ninety degrees.

“He won’t do any better working there,” Maywood said. “He’s been so fired up lately.”

“Did he get into another fight with your Moeder?” Cameron asked.

“No. I think it’s because of that Autrean girl.”

“Avery.”

“Yeah. He was bad-mouthing her all day in our den. I think it’s because she’s being seen as someone new and interesting even though she’s an Autrean. Basil…isn’t thought of like that.”

Cameron nodded and sat next to Maywood on the steps. Basil did own the dark skin and hair of an Autrean. He had a nose and jaw unlike anyone in the Community. Once he was born, the Community reacted like a bear had been spotted in the tunnles. Rumors spread. Their Fader left. Basil grew up with everyone whispering his name behind his back. Cameron had never cared that much about the difference until Basil woke up as a six-year-old and realized that people treated him differently than his sister. Then he iced over and isolated himself from everyone who still loved him.

“I think it’s also about our Moeder, of course,” Maywood added, “but I don’t wish to bore you with our lives.”

“You won’t.”

She smiled, but it was forced. “I hardly ever see her anymore. She’s been booking meetings with your Moeder for readings, sometimes taking four-hour sessions, and she’s stopped sleeping with us in our den. I think she either sleeps here or with her friends.”

“Because of Avery or because of Basil?” Cameron asked.

“This’s been going on for a while,” she answered. “Basil’s just turned fifteen, you know, the height of being an adult. I think she’s planning on kicking him out to find his own den.”

“No,” Cameron said, taken aback. “She wouldn’t. You’re still living there, and you’re almost eighteen. My own Moeder’s still living in her birth den. I’m planning on staying there until I have kids or a cave-in forces me out.”

Maywood smirked. “A cave-in that you’ll create?”

“Hey.”

Maywood laughed and stood up with her cane. “I should make sure Basil doesn’t punch a wall and cause that cave-in.”

“Do you need help? Do you want this?” Cameron offered her the honey.

“I’m okay. Back when Basil still had his job as a scavenger, he brought me bottles and bottles of honey. It tastes too sweet for me now. Ask that Avery girl to bring some new foods here. The scavengers always tell us about how nice their food smells, I think it’s time we try it.”

Knowing she could get out of the Centrum by herself, Cameron went back to their den with their spirits a bit higher.

Technically, their Moeder did still live in their den, but Cameron’s path hardly ever crossed hers. Her hours at the psychics’ den kept her there for days at a time. Catching her out of work was more of a miracle than having an Autrean land feet away from you.

Still, when Cameron entered their tunnle, they slowed their steps, hoping to hear their Moeder cleaning or resting.

Their den, excluding Nuvu, was empty.

Nuvu squeaked at Cameron as they entered. She hung upside down from her metal grate and cast evil eyes down at her owner.

“I’m sorry,” Cameron said, reaching to pet her head. “She won’t come back anymore. It’s okay.”

Nuvu tried biting them, then stretched out her long, black wing and turned around.

Cameron understood. They’d found Nuvu as a starving, injured pup abandoned on a tunnle floor. Distrustful of humans, she slowly became familiarized with just a handful of faces. To have someone new enter her home must’ve broken whatever trust Cameron had created with her.

Before heading out to work, Cameron took a moment to breathe. Feeding their firebugs a bit of honey, they unhooked their lantern, stripped to their skin-tight suit, and knelt before their gemme collection.

Each gemme attracted their own person like a child to their favorite parent. Cameron loved orange, yellow and white gemmes. They didn’t discriminate and picked up any gemme which called out to them, but these stones, the way they felt in Cameron’s hands, they held a magic within their cut, a spark Cameron had been seeking out for years.

Choosing their most prized gemmes, Cameron laid down in their bed and positioned the gemmes on their upper chest.

The gemmes’ energies fed into Cameron’s body and replenished them with positivity. Their coolness mixed with Cameron’s warmth as they shared stories through Cameron’s skin. Their births, from specks in the rock to their hardening and beautiful crystallization. Years of potential, manifesting magic destined to help Cameron at this one moment in time.

Cameron felt up their throat, feeling drowned by their natural gifts.

Then they started to speak. You had to be alone to hear them, alone with just you and your worrying thoughts. In tiny whispers, the gemmes told Cameron that they needed to calm down, to not worry about things out of their control above or underneath Arkęh:na.

“But I want to,” Cameron whispered back. “I want back control. Everything feels dizzy.”

The gemmes told Cameron that it was because breathing was becoming more difficult for them and that they needed to tell their Moeder about it.

“I can’t,” Cameron said. “You know I can’t. I can’t worry her. I just want things to become calm again.”

Energy flowed too quickly into Cameron’s arms, glueing them to their blankets. In a motherly tone, the gemmes reminded Cameron that they lived on Earth and that Earth hadn’t been designed to be calm. That’s why wind always danced through the tunnles. That’s why waterfalls flowed. That’s why humans never stopped growing.

All the concentration Cameron was putting into their gemmes and their conversation ended when Basil walked in. He excused himself and squatted beside Cameron’s bed, expecting Cameron to drop everything and tend to his worries.

Doing just that, Cameron sighed and sat up. “What?”

“Don’t meet with the Autrean girl again.”

Cameron rolled their eyes and rolled one of their gemmes on their thigh. “She’s not like other Autreans. I don’t believe you when you say—”

“I’m telling the truth,” Basil stressed. “You haven’t met the Autreans like I have. They’re loud and mean and destroy the Earth. They’ll destroy you, too, if you get too close.”

“Here we go.”

“I’m only looking out for you.”

“I’ve never asked you to look out for me,” Cameron told him for the 1,001st time. “You can’t control my life like this again. Who I choose to hang out with is my business.”

Basil lowered his head. His fingernails dug into his rabbit-fur slippers.

“Think about it,” Cameron said. “She’s an Autrean. If we get to know her, she might know something about your Fader. She might be able to lead you to him.”

Basil’s eyes widened. “How did you know about that?”

“About what?”

As he tried scrounging up a made-up reason, fear clawed down his neck and attached itself to his sweating face.

“Wait,” Cameron said. “Have you been trying to find your Fader? Have you been leaving Arkęh:na?”

Basil looked out to the tunnle, hearing for anyone eavesdropping.

“ _Basil_ ,” Cameron whispered.

“Don’t tell anyone,” he begged. “I’ll stop. I won’t do it anymore.”

“How could you leave without a group? You’re not a scavenger anymore. It’s not allowed.”

“I know.”

“How long?”

“Just a few weeks.”

“ _Weeks_?”

“Leave it,” Basil said. “I won’t go out anymore. I can’t find anyone who looks like me, anyway.”

“You shouldn’t be going against your job,” Cameron pressed. “Please don’t go out anymore. Don’t upset the Community.”

Basil scratched underneath his tunic where his heart resided. Everyone knew that whenever you did something wrong, the Community felt it. Stealing, attacking, bad-mouthing, it weighed down on not only you, but your family as well. The shame in Basil’s face contrasted with the passion in his eyes that maybe, one day, he could meet his Fader.

“What would you even say if you found him?” Cameron asked in a softer tone.

Basil shrugged. “What would you say to your Fader if you met him?”

“My Fader’s dead.”

“Your Fader’s missing,” Basil corrected.

“He left to live on the surface when I was a child. He’s never coming back.” Cameron picked at their blanket fur. “But if I could, I’d ask why he left, why I wasn’t good enough for him to stay.”

“That’s not why he left,” Basil said. “The only reason anyone leaves is to be free. That’s why my Moeder left, I think, to feel what it’s like to be free. I just wished she’d tell me something about him. What he looked like, what his name was. Then I’d have a better time tracking him down.”

“You can’t track him down anymore. Ask Avery. I’m sure she’ll help.”

“No. I don’t like her, Cameron. She’s not good enough for you.” He dusted off his knees. “Don’t tell your Moeder what I’ve been doing.”

“I have to tell her if she asks me, Basil. You know that.”

A sickly look overcame him.

“I’m sorry. Maybe you can ask your Moeder for guidance.”

“That’s the problem. She doesn’t talk to me anymore. Too Autrean for her liking, or not enough.”

Cameron gawked. “Don’t say that about your own Moeder.”

“Whatever. Just don’t talk to that Autrean anymore.” Cursing Avery’s very name, Basil left, off to vent to someone else who could handle his feelings.

Cameron rolled two of their gemmes in their hand. If their Moeder actually asked, they wouldn’t really divulge everything to her. Still, thinking that Basil was leaving his home to find another troubled Cameron. If caught, he could be excommunicated from Arkęh:na entirely, forced to live in the woods with people who wouldn’t take kindly to his aggressive disposition.

Cameron rested their forehead against their bed’s wall. Now alone, their gemmes whispered secrets in their ear. They said they didn’t want to be lonely anymore.

“But you already have so many gemmes around you,” Cameron said, and put them back where they belonged. Then they noticed their excavating equipment resting near their door.

Strapping on their bags and gloves, Cameron coughed out all the grit in their lungs and headed out for the tunnles.

Unlike the tunnles leading to everyone’s homes, the true tunnles, the ones that marked every Arkęh:nen’s right arm, led deep into the depths of the mountain. The ones with no lanterns, the ones that birthed the most energized gemmes. While Cameron loved every Arkęh:nen, their true loves awaiting them within the walls, hiding and ready to sparkle.

Cameron took the entrance closest to the Community dens. It was the one least used and made for the perfect escape for when life became too much even the psychics couldn’t help. The door hardly stood as a door anymore, just a rotten piece of bark meant to keep the drafts at bay, but Cameron liked that about this tunnle. It felt like keeping the better parts of a secret.

With no lantern affixed to the wall, Cameron stepped into the darkness and lost themselves within the mazes.


	8. Language Lesson

Cameron awoke in a cocoon of earthy darkness, entombed by the natural smell of soil. The feeling wrapped around them like a blanket until a stiff pain snapped down their neck and ached their shoulders. Moaning, they rolled onto their knees and shook the sleep out of their senses.

It took some time to find out exactly which tunnle Cameron had fallen asleep in. They touched the edges of the cave with restless eyes, found certain hanging rocks and stalagmites, and listened for which way the Rivière was winding through  the tunnles. It was faint, but when Cameron silenced themselves of thought and worry, they heard it flowing clearly, as if a channel flowed through their own ears.

Luckily, through the blessings of the glorious Grandmoeders, Cameron had fallen asleep near an Exit. They had memories of crossing bridges made of twine or exploring newly created waterfalls, but they must’ve passed out suddenly without realizing it. They couldn’t differentiate the comfort they felt  in the tunnles from their own bed hole.

The closest Exit led Cameron into the artisan shoppes. The silkworm farms had just opened for the morning. Workers were puffing fire bellows into quiet ashes as others carefully extracted warm pottery from the kilns.

Cameron glanced around for either Maywood or Basil. They stayed clear of the psychic’s den in case they saw their Moeder, but as they secretly took peeks near it, they saw a strange scene: a completely desolate ville.

To make sure they weren’t losing their sight—a fear they had weekly nightmares about—Cameron checked inside the silkworm huts. Hundreds of tiny silkworms and silkworm cocoons rested safely in shelves built into the rock. Three older Arkęh:nen looked after them as they spun fresh silk.

“Where is everyone?” Cameron asked them.

“We thought you heard,” one of them—Berr—said. “We thought you’d be the first one to see.”

“Your Moeder was looking for you,” another one—Haides—said.

“Where?”

Berr pointed out the window. “The Main Exit Tunnle.”

Cameron leaned out of the hole to see what the two men were implying.

More than two-dozen Arkęh:nen lingered in the tunnle opening like mice trying to squeeze into the same hidey hole. They murmured as they stood on their tiptoes, trying to see something spectacular.

Stripping themselves of their mining equipment, Cameron tripped out of the hut and ran towards the Exit.

Double the amount of Arkęh:nen were huddled within the cramped tunnle. Some balanced their babies on their shoulders while others climbed onto higher rock to see up ahead. No member of the Community acted this way unless one of two things happened: a person had died, or someone had brought down a treasure from the surface: a good roll of rope, glass.

A person.

Cameron pushed passed the standstill crowd and made their way towards the center of it all.

Avery stood amongst the curious with her arms tight at her sides. She smiled weakly, a defense mechanism to disarm a threat. Some pressing Arkęh:nen asked her questions, to which she just smiled harder and said nothing.

When she smiled back at Cameron, though, she relaxed and gave them a real smile. Today, not only was she wearing a new outfit entirely, but she had Cameron’s treasured necklace still around her neck. She’d entangled her fingers through the twine as she them gave a small wave.

Cameron couldn’t control themselves and ran into her for a hug. She smelled sweeter than last time, like she’d touched a spot of honey around her ears.

She didn’t hug back. She stood there, mute, and slowly, the awkwardness that grew between them forced Cameron back. She must’ve not enjoyed physical contact as much as they did.

“I thought you’d never come back,” Cameron said.

She said something in return.

“I still can’t understand you.”

Avery shifted her weight on her heels. “My … Moeder.”

“Moeder?” Cameron asked. “Your Moeder what?”

“Moeder…” She made a harsh X with her forearms, then pointed at herself, then to the top of the Exit hole. She pretended her fingers were walking down the decline.

“Your Moeder forbade you from coming here?” To say this, Cameron copied her hand gestures with a confused look, and Avery nodded confidently.

Satisfied that Avery now had a trustworthy companion with her, the Community dispersed. News that the Grandmoeders had allowed her to come back regularly must’ve stuck. Some eyes lingered on Avery for longer than what Cameron thought was necessary, but they left soon enough and allowed Cameron and Avery to enter back into Arkęh:na.

Like before, Avery marvelled at the expanse of Arkęh:na. She turned in circles with a hand over her heart, her backpack her anchor, her smile suppressed, too nervous to show off true feelings.

Cameron picked the dirt out of their fingernails, then tapped Avery on her shoulder and pointed her towards the Centrum.

They sat together on the best throw pillows filled with the fluffiest goose feathers. While Avery pulled something out of her pack, she looked up to the pillars holding up the Centrum ceiling and the lanterns spiraling around them. The amount of awe in her jaw left Cameron staring at how wide her eyes could go, how they twinkled for knowledge.

Maybe they just pretended to see that.

Avery pulled out a thin book.

Cameron raised their brows. No one in Arkęh:na used books. The Community didn’t even see reading as required knowledge to have. The ends of maintaining the parchment, quills, and light didn’t justify the means, but the Autreans seemed to be keeping up the ancients traditions.

Cameron swung around a Centrum lantern for Avery to see.

“Thank you,” it sounded like she said, and opened up the book to the first page.

Pictures of fully fleshed-out Autreans smiled up at Cameron. They looked so lifelike and _there_ that, for a naive moment, Cameron believed them to be miniature people and not just pictures of them captured in time, these “fotos.”

Basil had explained this strange technology to Cameron once before, about how Autreans could capture moments in time and paint them so quickly with absolute perfection. “Fones” could do this, as well as “kamras,” but it looked like Avery had somehow taken the pictures and placed them in this book for safekeeping.

Cameron felt around the fotos’ corners. Avery had pictures of herself in broad daylight and of herself sitting on an elevated, fancy-looking bed. In some, Past Avery stood next to two other dark-skinned, dark-haired adults who looked just like her. She looked to be eight or nine, her hair just above her shoulders.

“Moeder,” Avery said, pointed to the woman, “and…”

“Fader?” Cameron asked.

“Yeah. Moeder Juniper and Fader Ethan.”

“And Avery,” Cameron said, touching her knee.

“And Cameron.”

Their “ands” sounded so similar. Could they make more words like this, more questions? All Arkęh:nen had questions about Autrean life, but now Cameron had a perfect teacher to learn from.

“Fader?” Avery then asked. “Cameron’s…” She raised her shoulders and hands, posing a question.

“My Fader?” Cameron asked. “You want to know about my Fader?”

She nodded.

Cameron searched for the right words. They had no “fotos” of the man and no memories of him.

“ _He looked a lot like you_ ,” was the most Cameron had ever gotten from their Moeder. Along with his name: Erik.

Without the Autreans words to tell her that, Cameron copied what Avery had done and made an X with their arms.

Avery seemed to understand. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

Avery flipped to the next page and started drawing something with a queer quill. She squinted as she drew, as if one lantern’s light wasn’t enough. Cameron noticed that tucked in her pocket was the _fone_ that stung their eyes.

Once she finished, Cameron saw that she’d drawn a few gemmes. She pointed at the real ones around Cameron’s neck and made her questioning gesture.

“Gemmes?” Cameron asked. “Well, gemmes are…”

“Good?” Avery asked.

“‘Good’? Did you say ‘good’? Yes, gemmes are good. They heal us, protect us. They help us when we’re lost or scared.”

“Gemmes…help…Cameron?”

Giddy, Cameron took Avery’s quill and grew a big smiley face next to her gemme drawing. They took turns scribbling silly doodles around it, though Cameron’s couldn’t compare to Avery’s talent. While shaky, her love of drawing shone through the pages.

They spent nearly a half hour drawing gemmes and smiley faces. After they filled up two pages, Avery wrote out her alphabet in near perfect handwriting. She tried her best to teach Cameron her language, but “TVs,” “cities,” and “laptops” didn’t and would never register with Cameron.

“They’re like—” Avery pretended to fiddle with something in her lap.

“Is it an object, or something like magic, like an idea you summon with your heart?”

Avery pressed her mouth in a thin line, thinking hard. While she thought, Cameron thumbed through her book.

“Wait—”

They saw something, though. Right before Avery pulled it away, they saw a familiar face.

“Was that me?” Cameron asked. “Did you draw me on that page?”

Avery pressed the book against her chest. “Not good.”

“Not good? What’s not good?” Inching the book out of Avery’s hands, Cameron flipped back to the page and admired themselves in her style. Their eyes looked too big and their hair had a lot of detail in it, but it was undoubtedly them.

“This’s really good,” they said. “Can you draw me again?  _Draw me_?” they tried in English.

Avery laughed at nothing and yanked down her hat. “Eye,” she then said, averting the questions and pointing to her own eyeball. “Why?”

Being a lot easier to explain, Cameron searched for a nearby rock and readied their theatrical performance. They indicated that, in this story, they were smaller, about eleven. They pretended to carve out some rocks on their hands and knees, improperly digging without the equipment they had now. They made a note to look up cautiously at the Centrum ceiling as if it’d collapse on them. Unable to change fate, Cameron let the rock fall gently against their forehead and eye socket. They faked a head pain and gave a few moans to end their retelling about how they started their first cave-in.

Avery, jaw dropped, clapped her hands.

Cameron played off of her energy with a hammy bow. “I got these from the collapse, too.” They showed off their calf scar and the skin which had been etched away by the Earth.

Avery pulled her legs to her chest, admiring Cameron’s body. Before Cameron got too flustered by that idea, Avery took off her yellow boot and two layers of socks to reveal her naked foot. A scar similar to Cameron’s cut white and pink against her shaven leg.

“How?” Cameron asked, and made the question gesture they’d been using.

Thinking about how to say it, Avery took her notebook and made it into a V shape. Then she pretended that her fingers were a walking person, carefully yet carelessly walking towards the edge. She made a quiet outcry, and the finger person tripped and fell into the V, landing wrong between their drawings.

“You fell?” Cameron asked.

Avery tightened her shoulders as if trapped.

“You got stuck?”

“S…Stuck?” Avery asked. “Yeah, stuck. Two—” And she said something that sounded like “hours.”

Cameron understood. With the way she dressed and with her pack filled with instruments, Avery looked able to walk the woods by herself, but Cameron only trusted Arkęh:nen to safely go in and out of tunnles, Earth’s unforgiving zones.

Two small children who lived in the northern dens crept into the Centrum. They took cover behind pillow forts and the pillars, trying to get closer to Avery without her noticing.

She did. Halfway from where they started, Avery caught the children a second after Cameron had.

Catching the Autrean’s eyes, the two children yelped and ran away. From either the way they waddled away or how hard they screamed, Avery burst into laughter. When one of them tripped and fell flat on the face into a bushel of blankets, Avery heaved over and choked on her giggles.

Cameron laughed along with her. Ever since meeting her, they’d feared she didn’t like showing too much happiness to other people. Seeing her shiny white teeth and the tears collect in the corners of her black eyes made Cameron want to keep laughing just so she kept laughing.

But then Cameron’s body shut down. A burning charred up their lungs and scratched their throat. Their shoulders numbed. Their arms went cold. They coughed to get something out, but nothing but spit came out.

“Cameron?” Crawling over their drawings, Avery touched Cameron’s back.

“I’m okay,” Cameron wheezed. “This’s normal. It’ll go away soon.”

“No…Normal? No, no normal.” Avery wrestled with her pack’s front pocket and pulled out a small, orange bottle with a white top. She put that back immediately, not what she was looking for. Then she pulled out another bottle and shook out two blue rocks. She pointed to her mouth, indicating that Cameron should eat them.

Cameron finished coughing into the crook of their arm. “You can’t eat rocks.”

Avery read the label on the bottle, then offered it to Cameron again.

Again, Cameron pushed them away. “I’m fine.”

A crackle rustled in Avery’s bag. Still holding the bottle, Avery unzipped another zipper and took out the crackling box Cameron had seen in the Grandmoeders’ Den.

“Moeder,” Avery said. She started packing away her quills and notebooks.

“Your Moeder what?” Cameron asked. “Are you already leaving? You just got here.”

“Uh…” She tried a few words, none of which Cameron understood. She thought about it some more, eyes darting from side to side, then pretended to ring something in her hand. She made the exact sound the bell made whenever a Grandmoeder wished to speak with you.

“A bell? Was your Moeder talking to you just now?”

“Moeder, bell, yes.” She tied her shoe back on her foot and stood up.

Sensing that she needed to leave right away, Cameron escorted Avery back through the Main Exit Tunnle. She walked much more confidently than she had a few days ago. Cameron had only lit a few firebugs and, when they reached the end, Avery had only hit her head once.

Avery played with her backpack straps, staring at the ground between her shoes and Cameron’s slippers. Cameron’s firebugs flitted around with their light.

In a defeated tone, Avery said something akin to “goodbye” or “farewell.”

Cameron tried copying her accent with little success, then said in Arkęh:nen, “I hope your Moeder lets you come down more often.”

“Yeah,” Avery said, though Cameron didn’t know if she’d actually understood them.

Avery took a step forwards, and Cameron couldn’t help but do the same. It felt odd, but the two gave each other a quick hug before Avery ascended back up to the surface world.

As Cameron waved goodbye, something cool dripped down their chin. Careful so as not to stain their shirt, they wiped it up with their finger.

Red spit smeared against their thumb.

Licking it back up, Cameron returned to the comforts of Arkęh:na.


	9. A Wardrobe Change

Avery waited in the gym hallway for her mother to pull up in the parking lot. Around her, students K–12 filled the halls with chatter and scuffling. Sport teams and afterschool clubs divvied up into their social cliques as the masses filed into lines for the buses. Avery had told her mother right after lunch that, due to nerves, she wanted to be picked up and not risk her anxiety rising during the half-hour bus ride. She had yet to spot her mother’s car between the yellow buses.

To keep her mind off the everpresent school filling her senses, Avery opened up her notebook. She’d printed out dozens of pictures of the forest and of her parents to show Cameron, but she hadn’t expected Cameron to see her _drawings_ . And the drawing of _them_ specifically. She’d caught herself doodling them in class, but they were doodles, not finished illustrations. She had to do better next time they met up.

Still, she smiled at herself as she admired Cameron’s doodles. The shaky lines held the flair of a kid who spent most of their free time in caves, their fingers browned by soaking them in the Earth for too long. She even spotted excess dirt dirtying the page. Avery had secretly hoped Cameron would draw her, but it never happened. Just gemmes and smiling faces.

So far, Avery hadn’t told anyone about Cameron or Arkęh:na. She had no reason to tell her teachers and her parents would never believe her. Her parents didn’t even know she caved as deeply as she did. She wouldn’t put it past them to forget about “Arkęh:na” entirely and just ban Avery from the forest while the authorities arrested 300-odd people for living illegally on state ground.

No, she’d never tell them. Not being able to judge their reaction made her bury down the secret even deeper than Arkęh:na itself.

After all the buses left and the hall became less sporadic, Avery looked up to see her mother’s car waiting impatiently near the curb. She had her phone to her ear, likely about to call Avery to tell her to turn around. As Avery guessed, her phone rang a second later.

“I’m coming,” she said, and hung up.

Her mother’s car interior contradicted her messy computer workspace. She vacuumed it every night, so the black floor mats were kept immaculate, free of crumbs and receipts. Whenever Avery entered into the backseat, her mother watched her to make sure she didn’t track anything into the car.

“How was school?” she asked in an automatic manner. “Why’d you have me pick you up?”

“Just overwhelmed.”

“About?”

“Nothing much.”

Knowing she’d never get anything more out of Avery, Avery’s mother turned out of the parking lot into the town of Foxfield.

Foxfield’s Main Street consisted of two gas stations, a supermarket, a post office, and two churches that must’ve been built in the 1800s. Town Hall reminded Avery of what pilgrims flocked to to discuss the Constitution. The houses even more so, with their white pillars and multiple fireplaces. Avery and her family lived about thirty minutes away from it all, architects of their own outcasting.

“Right after you texted me, I got a call from your grandmother,” Avery’s mother said. “Your grandfather’s not doing well. He collapsed again while trying to clean the stairs. He’s in bed now, resting, but your grandmother’s trying to take care of the store by herself.”

“Grandma _can_ take care of the store by herself,” Avery said, remembering all the triumphant speeches her grandmother had given her about running her own store.

“Not at her age, not anymore. I wanted your father to go check on them, but he’s out working in the field, and then you called. I’m planning on staying there for a few hours. Do you have any homework to do?”

“Not a lot. Can you drop me off—”

“No. No more hiking. You’ve never hiked this much before. Your grandmother needs us.”

Thinking about how much Cameron would’ve wanted to help _their_ Grandmoeders, Avery conceded and planned to visit Arkęh:na another day. Not that she didn’t care about her grandfather. Whenever they came to see him after he collapsed, he always told them to go back home, to the point where he almost yelled at them. He _was_ going deaf, but Avery didn’t want to stress them out with worry they felt wasn’t justified.

Avery’s mother drove through Foxfield’s pastures and farmland with lax movements. The forest towered over them on the left while cows and horses grazed on the right. Avery had always wanted to try their fresh produce, but her mother didn’t trust the farm owners. Unless Avery went to her grandparents’ store, she couldn’t try what Foxfield had to offer.

Avery’s mother went to turn left to head, then slammed so hard on her brakes that Avery’s head flung forwards, her back jumping off the seat. Her mother’s cane, which she’d hooked on the front seat, clattered between the seat and door with the force of the car’s sudden stop.

Someone had turned quicker than Avery’s mother had and sped away just as fast. Avery’s mother, panting, cursed them out and went to grab her cane.

“The light’s green,” Avery warned her.

“I know,” she said, and left her cane be to make the turn.

Avery studied the tip of her mother’s wooden cane. She’d seen a few Arkęh:nen use canes to walk around. Some of them had bandages over certain parts of their body, but most of them looked young, like Avery’s age.

“Hey, Mom?” Avery asked. “What’s it like being hurt all the time?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean with your cane, and how you’re not going to get better.”

“You mean being disabled?”

“I think.”

Her mother tightened her grip on the steering wheel as she road into the forest. “Do you think your Lyme Disease is getting worse?”

“No. I’m still taking my medication every morning with my breakfast.” Avery patted the front pocket of her bag to make sure she still had both the antibiotics and her regular headache medication. When Cameron had ruptured into that coughing fit, Avery had almost given the former to them. “I’m just curious about how it feels. I’ve…been talking with somebody, at school, who might’ve been born with something bad in them.”

“So you’re talking about a chronic illness. A chronic illness is a sickness that lasts months and months, like cancer or asthma. It can sometimes be cured or lessened with treatment and self-care, but normally it stays with you. A _terminal_ illness is usually a quicker sickness that typically results in death.”

Avery slid into the backseat, intimidated by how much her mother knew. “I think they have a chronic illness.”

“Well, it’s…difficult, to say the least.”

“Does it always hurt?”

“More or less. You just have to deal with it. Some people can’t. If I hadn’t been wearing my seatbelt when I got into that car accident years ago, I would’ve gone straight through the window and lost more than just my leg strength. That bear or moose—whatever I hit—sent me straight through the guardrail and down a ditch.”

“They never found what you hit?” Avery asked. “What if it was a person?”

“Your grandparents said they’d found a dead deer a mile from where the crash happened. They think I hit that. It was too dark for me to see.”

Avery watched the blur of green and brown fly by. “So how would I go around talking about my friend’s sickness?”

“Well, what sickness does she have?”

 _She._ Even though she didn’t understand it herself, Avery respected how Cameron chose to identify, but she didn’t have the courage to correct her mother. Not wanting to upset her, Avery said, “I’m not sure yet. They…She coughs a lot, but I think it’s normal. She’s also really frail and pale.”

“Does she take medication for anything?”

“No, I don’t think so. They’re really religious, I think. They’re like a Wiccan.”

“Her family’s  _Wiccan_?” Avery’s mother asked. “Avery, don’t hang out with Wiccans, especially if they’re sick. You know how easily you catch other’s illnesses.”

“But what if they’re getting sick based on the environment they’re in, like their house is moldy or the air in it is bad?”

“Avery, you can only do so much for this girl. Not everyone can pick up their house and move to someplace better.”

“You and Dad did when Grandma and Grandpa set up shop here.”

Avery’s mother caught her daughter’s eye in the rearview mirror. “If you’re so worried about her, convince her parents to do something about it. You can only do so much for someone who doesn’t want to change.”

Avery smiled bleakly at the thought of her trying to convince Cameron’s Moeder or even their Grandmoeder to move out of a place they’d been living in for more than 300 years. Hopefully Cameron would understand her before the worst happened. Spending so much time in those tunnels couldn’t have been healthy.

“Here we are,” Avery’s mother announced, pulling into the rocky parking lot.

Her grandmother’s and grandfather’s mom and pop shop was trapped in a snow globe of autumn decor from the 80s. Everything smelled so much of artificial cinnamon that Avery fully believed the floorboards were just flattened cinnamon sticks.

Giant cardboard cutouts of hand-drawn apples welcomed them at the front door. Real apples, pumpkins, and pears sat next to apple, pumpkin, and pear candles. Cartoon milk jugs and orange juices chilled above the refrigerators, and cheesy knickknacks of bears and bald eagles collected dust on tables decorated with maple leaves.

Avery’s grandmother, Sun, swiveled on her swivel stool behind the front counter. Her crochet needles poked out of whatever scarf or blanket she was currently knitting.

“Where’s Ash?” Avery’s mother asked. “Is he resting? How is he?”

“He’s fine,” Avery’s grandmother said, “though he called down saying he walked into our closet and didn’t like what he saw. Said he was going to try and rearrange the summer and winter clothes before dinner.”

“What do you mean? He should be resting. Didn’t you say he fell?”

Ignoring her worries, Avery’s grandmother beckoned Avery over and kissed her cheek. “How’re you doing, baby?”

“Grandpa’s still alive, right?”

“Of course he is, but since you’re all so worried, let’s go up and see him. I told you, Juniper, there’s nothing to worry about. Old people fall all the time.”

“You have to worry when old people fall. I’m telling you, I found this nice retirement home—”

“Marlows don’t go into retirement,” Avery’s grandmother said. “We work until we die, and then our granddaughters take up the family business.”

“I’m not good at talking with people,” Avery reminded her.

“You haven’t learned anything from your mother. Juniper, baby, come up with us. I wanted to talk to you about that paper you’re writing for your job. Ash is worried about this mountain your husband’s demolitioning.”

Avery darted up the staircase before her mother and grandmother got there. She never minded waited behind them as they plodded up the steps, but her mother would yell at her to go up first, and her grandmother would always shuffle a little quicker up the stairs whenever Avery waited behind her. That Marlow stubbornness had never reached Avery’s bloodline.

Avery’s grandfather sat upright in bed underneath a single quilt. Three of their four pillows held his head upright so he could watch television with ease.

To combat the television’s volume, he shouted, “Hey, Avery, girl. I didn’t know you were coming down to say hello.”

“Hi, Grandpa.” Avery bent down to withstand one of her grandfather’s surprisingly strong hugs.

“How’re you doing? How’s that girlfriend of yours? Is she still giving you trouble?”

Avery blew out her cheek in surprise. She’d told him several times not to use that phrasing. She didn’t want to say something she didn’t mean, or she didn’t want to tell them about it just yet. Her fight with Bridget still stung in her eyes.

“Sun said you fell,” Avery’s mother said, pulling up a chair. “You shouldn’t be working the shop when you’re this fragile. You should be settling down.”

Avery’s grandmother readied her husband’s medication and handed it to him with a glass of water. “He’s fine.”

“He’s not fine. You need to be relocated to a retirement home. You can’t keep taking these stairs.”

“I don’t want to talk about this right now,” Avery’s grandfather said in a harrumph. “Avery, tell me about school. You’re almost a high schooler now. Do you like your classes?”

“I don’t have a lot of classes with Bridget, so we’ve drifted apart, “Avery half-truthed, “but I did meet someone new.”

“Meet?”

“Not like that,” Avery corrected. “They’re just a friend. Their name’s Cameron. They’re, uh, a foreign exchange student from…” She couldn’t think of a country that didn’t sound outlandish, so she blurted out, “They’re from England.”

“A Brit?” Avery’s grandmother said. “I bet she has a cool accent.”

Avery wanted so badly to correct them, but she held herself back. She hardly understood it; the older generations would just make fun of her. “They’re into rocks and gemstones and stuff like that. We draw together.”

“She’s Wiccan, I’ve heard,” Avery’s mother said, arms crossed around her cane. “Magic and ghosts and the like.”

“Well, that just makes her more interesting, doesn’t it?” Avery’s grandmother said. “Does she cast spells on you?”

Avery chuckled, then seriously considered Cameron owning a wand. They’d be into healing magic, for sure.

“Oh, Avery, I found some more sweaters for you to try on,” her grandfather said.

“No more sweaters, she already has so many,” her mother said. “Half of her closet is sweaters, and most of them are from you.”

“I don’t mind,” Avery said. When her grandparents weren’t busy running their shop downstairs, they somehow magically produced their own brands of clothes. However they did it, wherever they found the time, news outfits, hats, and socks suddenly appeared in their closet, most of which teleported up the hill to Avery. The thickness of the material kept ticks from eating her alive.

“They’re on the stool,” her grandfather shouted.

“I got them,” Avery called back, and flipped through the gaudy designs. They felt as soft as the bear pelt in Cameron’s den.

She paused. She hadn’t seen any closets in the Arkęh:nen dens.

Coming out with a mountain of sweaters and jackets, Avery ran around the corner and said, “Do you have any more you don’t want?”

“Why?” Avery’s mother asked.

“I want to donate them.”

 

──✧──

 

Escaping the house proved easy when Avery only had to evade her mother. Sometimes she’d run into the forest, hang out for an hour in the trees, and come back without her mother noticing. Sometimes she’d get a scolding, but it amazed her how invested her mother got with her work.

When they got home and Avery’s mother went to her working space, Avery took one of her boxes of clothes up to her room. When she came back down, she had her school backpack stuffed not with school supplies but with as many sweaters as the zippers could handle. Adjusting the weight on her back, she casually climbed back down to the first floor and headed for the garage. “I’m gonna walk Oreo and Pumpkin for a bit. They looked antsy when we pulled up.”

Her mother checked the time on her computer. “Be back in a half hour, okay? Your father’s coming home late.”

“Okay. See you.”

“See you.”

Even though she was in the clear, Avery quietly shut the garage door so it wouldn’t creak and settled her dogs so they didn’t bark.

After she leashed her dogs, Avery opened her mother’s trunk and heaved out the other box of clothes. These could clothe at least five Arkęh:nen families with these.

Getting to Arkęh:na with a full backpack, a heavy box, and her two dogs tested her coordination. She knew she wouldn’t lose her determination, but maybe next time she’d bring a wheelbarrow. She knew they had so much junk in their attic, junk that could help a whole bunch of Arkęh:nen. Boxes, old mattresses—how would she smuggle a mattress up these hills? Maybe she could ask some of those “scavengers” for help, the hunters allowed to leave the caves.

When she got to the Main Exit Cave, she tied Pumpkin and Oreo to a nearby tree. Neither of them trusted the cave anymore after it’d swallowed Avery whole.

“You’ll trust it soon enough,” Avery told them as she moved the rock out of the way. “Trust me, it’s kind of fun down here.”

She’d gotten used to falling into Cameron’s place. She now used the wood and stone that jutted from the wall as a ladder. It got her dirty, but her parents wouldn’t bat an eye at their daughter’s muddy, dirty clothes.

Not many Arkęh:nen welcomed her to their Community as flamboyantly as they’d done a few days ago. Some turned their heads and some children hid behind their parents, but the Community had accepted her, or didn’t mind her as much.

But Cameron hadn’t come for her. Usually they heard her coming down and would take her in before somebody else did. She’d gone to their den once, but she’d passed dozens of similar-sized holes and had forgotten which level Cameron lived on.

Taking a chance, Avery shimmied towards the ville and stuck her nose in one of the open shoppes. The shopkeep had a monocle in one eye and his hair braided down his back. He was laughing wheezily at someone in the next shoppe.

“E-Excuse me,” Avery whispered. “I’m looking for Cameron?”

The man said something in astonishment, then checked the inside of Avery’s box, holding his monocle so it didn’t fall out.

“Uh, Cameron?”

“ _Cameron_?” he asked, then asked something else too fast for Avery to interpret. Their language reminded her of an English dialect lost by time.

“ _Okay_ ,” the old man finally said, and left their tent to show Avery the way.

The underground layer to Arkęh:na appeared just as magnificent as the layer above: three compact layers connected by ladders and rickety corridors. Some older teenagers hung outside of their homes, taking care of little kids and making sure they didn’t fall off the ledges. One group stared down at Avery and her escort. Avery dipped her head to hide her eyes from them, but the old man stopped, making Avery smack into him.

Cameron was inside their den, sleeping inside their bundle of quilts.

The old man gave Avery a pat before he headed back to his shoppe, leaving Avery in Cameron’s doorway.

Avery inched through the misshapen hole. She took in the dozens, maybe hundreds of “gemmes” Cameron had collected over the years. Some reached two feet tall and shined without the help of the lanterns outside. Cameron’s bat Nuvu, who was hanging on the metal grate attached to Cameron’s wall, had one in her mouth, nibbling on it like rock candy.

Cameron inhaled and smacked their head against the stone around them. They stammered in Arkęh:nen like they’d awoken from a bad dream and jabbed out their hand to retrieve a gemme near their feet.

“I’m sorry!” Avery said. “I just came in. I didn’t know you’d be sleeping.”

Cleaning their eyes of eye crust, Cameron shook their head, dismissing Avery. Then they addressed the box with a question. “What?” they asked. “What is?”

“Clothes,” Avery said. “My Grandmoeder and Grandfader made them and was going to give it to me”—she pointed at herself—“but I don’t need them, so I wanted to give them to you.” She pointed at Cameron.

Cameron coughed a raspy cough and inspected Avery’s presents. Thankfully, they were wearing their strange skin-tight suit, so Avery didn’t have to cover her eyes that much. “Me?” they asked, hanging the sweater over their torso for size comparison.

“Yeah, for you. For Cameron.”

“Wow.” Cameron climbed out of their bed and hugged Avery. “Thank you,” it sounded like they said.

“You’re welcome. I was looking at some of these and think that you’d look nice in—”

Cameron took the box and struggled to lift it with both arms. Before Avery could help them, they left with the box and turned down the hall.

“Cameron?” Avery asked. She went to ask them what they were doing, then figured out their intent.

Dropping the box at their feet, Cameron took to handing out all of Avery’s grandparent’s clothes to their neighbors. Parents from across the walkway came over with hesitancy, nervous about what Avery had to give them, but Cameron made sure that they—everyone but them—had new clothes to wear until the box had been emptied.


	10. Curiosity

Avery bit her jerky in half as she enticed her dogs into the formidable cave. Pumpkin had the right to be wary and kept hidden behind a dead tree. Oreo, though, kept his nose to the ground as he shuffled in place.

“It won’t be scary,” Avery promised them. “It’s just a short climb down.”

Pumpkin rubbed her face with her paw.

“Pumpkin, the stairs to my room are steeper than this.” She wanted to bring up multiple points to try to persuade her dogs to enter Arkęh:na, but she wasn’t alone in her room. She knew scavengers and other Arkęh:nen might’ve been listening to her, realizing that she conversed with her dogs as if they were humans.

When Oreo finally crept into the mouth of the cave, Avery rewarded him with a full piece of jerky. Either from hearing Oreo scarf it down or finding herself alone, Pumpkin snuck around the corner of the cave.

“You don’t have to stay that long,” she told them, “just try it. You’ll have to meet Cameron sooner or later. I’d consider them a…” She gave herself pause. It took a sleepover over Bridget’s house and a movie date before Avery had the courage to call her a “friend.” She couldn’t recall when “friend” had become “best friend” and when “best friend” had become something more, but she remembered vividly when they’d become “strangers,” when Avery had become “weird.”

Disheartened by that piercing memory, Avery pushed over the rock and pulled out more jerky to tempt her dogs down the slope.

Pumpkin shoved her snout into the airy darkness. Her tail, once between her legs, slapped against Avery’s backpack in excitement. No sooner had Avery notice Pumpkin’s change in personality than Pumpkin lost it and bolted down the slope. She ate it a few times and rolled on her side, but she recovered swiftly and reached the bottom on all fours.

Tied to Pumpkin at the hip, Oreo barked and followed her path, albeit with more grace and control.

“Wait!” Avery skipped a few rings of the wooden ladder and climbed down to catch them, but Pumpkin had found her feet. With Oreo not far behind, the two sprinted down the Main Exit Tunnle much more confidently than Avery had done when she discovered this underground world.

With worry sweating down her back, Avery shone her phone down the tunnle and called out to them. “Pumpkin, Oreo, wait! Come back!”

Pumpkin and Oreo transformed into royal guests in front of the people of Arkęh:na. Every idle Arkęh:nen locked their eyes on them, their mouths sagging. They dropped everything in their hands and stopped talking just to watch the two of them make their presence known. The way their eyes shined told Avery that these people had never seen a dog before, at least not an alive one.

But then the first shriek echoed through the Centrum, and then it multiplied. Arkęh:nen scattered. Some fell back on their butts as Avery’s dogs neared them. When someone pulled out something akin to a stick or a knife, Avery picked up her pace and snatched up Oreo’s collar. He hopped into the air like a horse, ready to meet hundreds of new friends.

“Come on!” Avery pleaded. “Knock it off!”

A dozen new screams slammed into Avery at once. They sounded young and hurt as if one of Avery’s dogs had bitten them. Avery knew it couldn’t have happened, but their crying still sounded horrified.

A gaggle of nervous children ran away from Pumpkin wagging her butt at them, and Cameron, wearing a strange poncho, stood petrified between them. They had a long staff in their hand with gemmes embedded into the wood. It looked like they’d been talking to the group of children before Avery’s dogs interrupted whatever they were doing.

Lowering their staff, Cameron tripped on their poncho before running away.

“No, it’s alright!” Avery said in English, then fought with her brain to say it in Arkęh:nen. She’d written down tips and tricks about the language in her sketchbook, but speaking it under her breath and actually implementing it took two different sides of her brain to use. “ _No…it’s good._ ”

“ _No!_ ” Cameron yelped. “ _It’s bad!_ ”

Following the line of screaming children, Cameron running away in an extravagant fashion, and her barking dogs, Avery gave chase and hoped not too many people thought bad of her when she stopped.

Cameron and the little children led her into that strange building she’d seen next to the tunnle to the Grandmoeders’ Den. It was the tallest structure in Arkęh:na, about a floor and a half high, with multiple holes acting as windows for a bird’s eye view of the village. Children safe from the barking poked their heads out of the holes, calling out to Avery.

“ _Autre, Autre!_ ” they kept chanting, but Avery didn’t know if they meant in an admiring or taunting manner.

She also didn’t know how a building made of rock and clay with no papers or pencils in it reminded her so much of a school. A bundle of bags and shoes were thrown into one corner of the hallway, somewhat organized yet catastrophically childlike with how few shoes were correctly matched with one another. Drawings of people and faces had been etched into the walls and colored with dyes. The families of stick figures and angry bears resembled cave drawings from prehistory, but they also leveled Cameron’s artistic skill.

Avery couldn’t dote on them for long and raced to where Cameron and the children had run towards. They’d barricaded themselves in a room at the end of the hall, but without doors, they had only a curtain separating themselves from Avery’s dogs. Knowing not even a staircase could halt Pumpin’s and Oreo’s innate curiosities, they bolted straight through.

The classroom-like room had boulders organized in a wide circle, shaven down so one could sit on them easily. In the center stood a larger, smoother boulder, likely where the teacher would sit and teach.

Maywood was sitting on the teacher boulder while Basil protected the children and Cameron with his arms. He shouted at Oreo and Pumpkin to get back.

“Don’t hurt them!” Avery grabbed her dogs’ collars and battled their strengths. “They don’t bite, they just get excited when they meet new people.”

“You craze!” Basil snapped in English. He, like Cameron and also Maywood, had on a lavish outfit that looked more like a costume rather than efficient caving clothes. “Stop them now! They’re loud!”

Avery pet her dogs into quiet submission. Oreo kept his snout relatively shut while Pumpkin whined for someone to acknowledge her. “I’m sorry. They usually control themselves.”

“ _What is?_ ” Cameron asked, covering their eyes with both hands.

“They’re dogs. They’re pets, like Nuvu to you.”

Basil tried translating for everyone. He never took his eyes off the dogs, and nothing he seemed to say made the children any less scared.

“Here. Look.” Avery cooed for Oreo to give her his paw. It’d been an old trick she’d taught him as a baby, but even with so much happening around them, Oreo gave her his paw twice. “They won’t hurt you. They’re good.”

“Why you bring the animals here?” Basil asked. “Animals do not come here.”

“I just thought it’d be fun. I didn’t think they’d act out and run away from me.” She lowered her head in shame. She’d thought she’d acclimated nicely to Arkęh:na. Now she felt like an unwelcome outsider all over again, unwanted by those she thought she could trust.

Sneaking up between Basil and the children, Cameron slunk over to Pumpkin on their hands in knees with an outstretched hand. Avery saw them shaking, but they fought through the fear to pet Pumpkin on her head.

Overcome by her own excitedness, Pumpkin lurched forwards and dropped Cameron on their back. She devoured them with love, wetting their face with sticky, slobbery kisses. One paw to Cameron’s gut made them gasp, but other than that, Pumpkin didn’t hurt them.

After seeing that Avery’s actions held no ill will, a few of the braver children broke from Basil’s security and touched the dogs. They squealed and hid their hands behind their backs, keeping watch of Avery for consent that this was okay. Soon every one of them gave a full pat on each dogs’ head. It relieved everyone except for Basil.

“ _Why…for…this?_ ” one child asked Avery. Avery had only caught those three words, so she waited and smiled at Basil for help.

Basil curled his upper lip at her as he helped his sister off the boulder and onto her cane. It looked like Maywood wanted to pet one of the dogs herself, but Basil kept her back.

“ _Basil, it’s fine_ ,” she said.

“ _No_.”

“She can pet them if she wants,” Avery told Basil. “They won’t hurt you.”

Maywood whispered something sternly at Basil before she pet Oreo around the collar. Going against his request, Basil said what sounded like a swore and walked himself into the corner to cool off.

Cameron spat out a mouthful of Pumpkin’s fur and wiped themselves of slobber. “ _Names_?” they asked.

“This one is Pumpkin and this one is Oreo,” Avery said, and the children began repeating their names in broken English.

“ _Oy-ro!_ ”

“ _Poomp-king!_ ”

Avery smiled as she lent Cameron her hand. They took it while also using their staff to keep them balanced.

“ _What’re you doing here_?” Avery asked, testing her Arkęh:nen. “ _Why’re you here_?”

“ _It’s a school_ ,” Cameron said, and addressed the herd of hip-high children. “ _We learn things here. It’s Children of the Kinder Day.”_

“Children…of the Kinder Day?” she translated, and made a questioning gesture.

Without Basil’s stubborn help, Cameron thought with their staff poised underneath their chin. Their spare hand found their way into a nearby child’s hair. “A day for the children,” they reworded in English. “Love children. A day for them.”

“Like a Children Appreciation Day?” Avery asked. “You’re English was good just then, by the way.”

“Good English?” Cameron asked. “I try. Basil, come here.”

Begrudgingly, Basil came over. “We celebrate the happiness of children,” he explained. “Us teach them the history and joys of Arkęh:na and Arkęh:nen life. You ruin it with these creatures. I hate them. Furry bears.”

“Well, Pumpkin and Oreo are close to me, so I thought Cameron meeting them would be…nice.”

Basil rolled his eyes in annoyance, yet explained the situation to everyone in the room.

With a proper explanation, Maywood smiled and played with Oreo’s neck fur. “ _Cute babies_ ,” she said. “ _I like them_.”

“ _I like this one_ ,” Cameron said, pointing to Pumpkin. “ _Cute colors. Avery is cute_.”

Avery’s chest went cold with dread. “ _Huh_?”

“ _Avery’s animals are cute. Avery’s animals_.”

“Oh.” She breathed forcefully through her nose. How had Cameron learned that word? Why had they said it in that way? Had Basil taught it to them to make a fool out of Avery? Was he really that mean?

“Oh, Avery. Help. Come here. Big.” Cameron pointed to their classroom ceiling, then waved their hand above their head, indicating a notable size difference.

Basil snapped upright and said something to Cameron.

“Avery is big,” Cameron said.

Basil said something back.

“Tall,” they then said, correcting themselves. “Avery is tall.”

“But I’m tall, too! I’m taller than she is, and I said I’d do it.”

“No. Avery here. Avery help.”

When Cameron started climbing on top of a desk-like boulder, both Avery and Basil ran to catch them in case they fell.

“What’re they doing?” Avery asked Basil.

“Supplies are stored in the ceiling for history lessons, but you do not have to get it. _Cameron, come down. I can get it. You’ll hurt yourself_.”

“ _You didn’t get it when I asked you to, so I’ll let Avery get them_.”

“ _Please be careful_ ,” Maywood told everyone, huddling the children around her like a real teacher.

Avery didn’t care which of them helped get the supplies down and went to tell them that in their own language, but she lost all train of thought in both English and Arkęh:nen.

At this angle, looking up at Cameron, Avery saw underneath their flowy poncho. They were wearing their tight bodysuit, but still, she’d never seen this literal side of them before. The curve of their lower back, the shape of their upper thighs…

Gulping, Avery leaned down to see more.

Basil slapped her in the arm, knocking her away from such thoughts and causing her to wince in pain.

“ _Basil_!” Maywood said in astonishment.

“Why did you just do that?” Basil demanded, looking aghast and disgusted with what Avery had done.

“I-I didn’t do anything,” Avery lied.

“I saw you. You look at them.”

“What?” Cameron asked.

Avery’s mind and feelings slipped down a mental slope, struggling to keep her from tumbling down. Struggling, she said, “Uh, nothing. Basil, he hit a bug off me. Right?”

Basil kept his eyes on her like always, reevaluating her in a tarnished light. Then he slowly dropped his hand and wiped it off as if to clean himself of something filthy. “It was a bug,” he muttered. “I kill it.”

“ _Don’t touch her, Basil_ ,” Cameron said, unaware of what just occurred. “Avery, please help?”

Avery stepped away, hiding her now shaking hands behind her. Her shameful head couldn’t have sunk any lower. She’d controlled this side of herself up until now, but sometimes this unsightly side came out without warning.

“Avery?”

“I’m okay,” she lied, and let Basil take on the job Cameron had wanted her to do.

Maywood, unable to speak English, came over with her cane and her group of doting children. She touched the middle of Avery’s back like a mother, reassuring her about something, but nothing she could’ve said could’ve eased what Avery was overthinking.


	11. Questions

Avery visited Arkęh:na three times that week. She had school to attend, but something about being a “middle schooler” apparently made her life horrible. Traversing through the “hallways” littered with judgemental people who all “hated” Avery sounded awful to Cameron. They couldn’t imagine who could hate someone like Avery, and knowing she had to “learn about subjects that they’d never use in life” made even less sense. It’d been years since Cameron had to attend school, but they’d tried relating to her struggles as best as they could. Sometimes Avery would come down just to sit in Cameron’s bed, listening to her music through her “headphones.” Cameron left her be during those times and wasted time organizing their organized piles of gemmes.

But after a few weeks, Cameron still couldn’t fully talk with Avery. Her “English” matched about thirty percent of Arkęh:nen words. Cameron understood the gist of it, but sometimes she nervous-talked, speeding through her thoughts until she started mumbling. Knowing her stutters and knowing who Cameron was, their communication was pretty bad, but they did their best with what they had.

“ _What…age…is Avery?”_ Cameron asked, sitting next to her in their bed. They shared a bowl of porridge cooked by the artisans that morning. Cinnamon sticks and dandelions bobbed in the white goop. While Cameron couldn’t scoff it down quick enough, Avery hesitated with every bite. After a back and forth in her notebook, Cameron found out that she didn’t like eating dandelions.

There were some aspects of Avery Cameron would never understand.

After swallowing down a big bite, Avery held up her age with her fingers.

“I’m thirteen, too,” Cameron said. “Me, same.”

“Same? Really?”

“Really.”

Avery cuddled deeper into Cameron’s blankets. She said she’d never felt real fur before. When she discovered the pelt’s empty eye sockets and snout, she screamed loud enough for Nuvu to fly out of the den.

“What…do you learn…in school?” Avery then asked in Arkęh:nen, and tapped her brain.

“Life,” Cameron said. “How babies are made, how to care”—they cradled one of their pillows like a baby—“for them, how to scavenge how to count, our history. What do you learn?”

Avery took to her notebook. The light from the firebugs shined on her black hair as she drew.

Between the lines, she drew open books, music notes, numbers with smiley faces around it, something that looked like her _fone_ device, an apple, a cooking pan, and a paper with a pencil against it. It looked like a lot to remember, especially since she was planning on going to school for ten more years. Cameron couldn’t imagine going to school for more than eight. It made Avery’s determination all the more admirable.

“Do you know how to do readings?” Cameron asked, pulling out their necklace. “Like future telling.”

Avery cocked her head.

“Fortune telling?”

She shrugged.

“Psychic reading?”

“Oh, psychic?” she asked. “Psychic, right.”

“Yeah. My Moeder’s a psychic. When I was younger, that’s all I wanted to be.”

“You, a psychic?”

“Right?” they said through a sigh. “I don’t have the person skills for it.” They stood up and rummaged through their nearest storage box and took out three of their strongest gemmes: three orange-colored ones. Then they took out a thick piece of bark for a suitable desk.

Avery pulled the pelt around her, giving Cameron space for something that probably didn’t exist in her world.

“Can I do a reading for you?” Cameron asked.

“Reading?”

With Avery watching their every move, that familiar sense of stage fright nestled inside of Cameron’s head. They knew they could give decent readings to themselves, but when faced with someone else’s emotions, everything stalled. The magic dripped from their fingers and seeped back into the Earth. Their Moeder could tap into someone’s inner demons and carve them out into something tangible. Cameron could barely comprehend a person’s outer emotions.

They pushed their bangs from their face to better concentrate. If they could demonstrate gemme magic to an Autrean, let it be Avery.

They closed their eyes and rolled the gemmes in their hands. They felt restless, a little agitated. One dropped out and hid underneath the covers.

“It’s okay,” Cameron told to them. “Don’t be scared.”

The edges cut into their palm, biting their owner’s hand. Confused, Cameron dropped them into Avery’s hands. “Feel every groove on each side, roll them around, hear what they have to say.”

Following Cameron’s hand movements, Avery tried it with her eyes closed. Cameron watched for any eye flickers, any jaw clenching, but saw nothing. When the magic didn’t come, Avery peeked open one eye and waited for Cameron to tell her what to do next.

Sighing, Cameron went to take the gemmes back.

When the first gemme touched their hand, electricity ran down their right side and shivered them with ice. It came and went like a slap on the cheek, and surprised Cameron enough to gasp and search for what’d gone wrong.

They hadn’t noticed it, but Avery hadn’t worn her _beanie_ for the first time since they’d met. They saw the entirety of her face unobstructed by clothing.

The electricity suddenly intensified and stood Cameron’s hair on end. “I-I don’t think I did this right,” they said. “Something went wrong.”

Avery asked a question.

“I don’t know. Uh…” They tried to shake the dirt out of their head, but they couldn’t. There wasn’t any. Their gemmes had hurt them in a way they couldn’t describe. A mixture of fear and doubt buried them and they had no time to figure out how to save themselves.

Avery pushed herself into Cameron’s bubble. “Okay?” she asked.

Cameron pushed their sweaty back against the wall of their bed. “Where’s your hat, on your head? I can see…more of your face.”

They said it slowly so they didn’t have to say it in English, and the gears turned in Avery’s eyes. First through the Arkęh:nen language, then with the actual realization that she’d forgotten to wear the hat she loved. She patted her empty head, messing up her hair with her fingers.

“It’s okay,” Cameron said. “You look nice without it on.”

Avery didn’t meet their eyes and did her nervous laugh, a laugh that concealed rather than unveiled.

Cameron rubbed down a facet on their gemme. The confidence they usually upheld with Avery dwindled out like an uphill stream.

They asked the gemme a single question to help them figure out what they were feeling.

“ _Ask her_ ,” the gemme said.

Cameron balled it up in their fist. “Avery,” they said. “Have you ever had a boyfriend or girlfriend before?”

“Huh?”

“Have you ever had a boyfriend or girlfriend before?”

Avery went quiet. Her hands swirly patterns in the blanket. “No,” she said. “I haven’t.”

Relief Cameron didn’t know that was inside them poured out. “Oh. Good.”

“Have you?”

“No.” They almost said it confidently. They should’ve had one by now, being thirteen, but instead they found yet another piece of themselves that complemented Avery.

Cameron placed a gemme against their lips, trying to cool them down, but they were burning. “Can I show you something, something different than gemmes?”

Avery nodded before Cameron finished speaking, so Cameron took her sweaty hand in theirs and led her to the gondolas.

Not many Arkęh:nen used the gondolas for leisure anymore. Sometimes lovers used them for nightly strolls, but more often than not the boats helped carry supplies across Arkęh:na. Cameron’s Fader had been a gondolier and therefore tarnished all the charm they had, but maybe Cameron could salvage such an important piece to Arkęh:nen culture with Avery.

They took Avery towards the Grandmoeders’ Den and took a left instead of a right. They felt her tense up from getting so close to them, but Cameron ushered her away, their heart pounding.

The cool winds from the cavern kissed Cameron’s cheeks. Low lights lit up the path to the gondolas, but like every path to Arkęh:na, Cameron knew the way.

Shouting echoed off the wet rock. Cameron recognized the familiar voices, but wished they hadn’t.

Basil was standing on a rickety gondola, holding onto a mooring pole near the shoreline as he shouted at Maywood. Maywood tried to calm him down, but it looked like her legs had given out on her. She was sitting down on a low rock while trying to make herself look tall.

“Why’re you shouting?” Cameron asked.

Basil stepped off the gondola, rippling the waters. “What’re you doing with her? I thought I told you to stop seeing her.”

“You don’t control who I get to see.” Cameron slapped Basil’s pointed finger out of their face. “Why’re you here?”

“Why’re _you_ —?”

“He just got this job as a gondolier,” Maywood explained. “It’s temporary, to try to find his place. I came down to see if he was hungry, and then he started yelling. It’s getting worse.”

“Did you come here with an _Autrean_?” Basil asked.

“I told you to stop calling her that,” Cameron said. “ _You’re_ part-Autrean.”

“No, I’m not!” Basil exploded. “You being with her’s just making you worse.”

“Me?” Cameron asked. “What’s been the matter with _you_? You’re the one getting worse.”

“I’ve seen the way she looks at you. She looks at you like a meal, and _you’ve_ been acting different ever since you met her.”

“Uh—”

“Who cares how she looks at me?” Cameron asked. “I look at her the same way she looks at me.”

“Because it’s not right! She’s not even—”

“Um—”

“Shut _up_!” Basil shouted in Avery’s face, and kicked the gondola hard. It cracked onto the other side of the canal and teetered.

Drops of water splashed from the top of the cave, hitting Cameron’s inflamed face. Gritting their teeth, they went to chastise Basil for his rudeness, but they stopped. They couldn’t move, couldn’t shout back.

Without her hat, Avery used her turtleneck to hide her crying face. She turned her back and crouched down, but couldn’t stop herself from breaking apart.

“I’m sorry,” she cried. “I didn’t…I just…”

Cameron tried to say something to help, but they didn’t know those words, so they stood there, stunned, emotions racking against their chest enough to make them cough.

Maywood stood up quicker than Cameron had ever seen her move, put all of her weight against her cane, and slapped Basil straight across the face. Then she took Avery’s hand and stomped her away.


	12. Answers

She had no idea what she’d done wrong, but she couldn’t stop herself from crying. All the uncertainty that’d been building up throughout the week struck her harder than when Maywood slapped her own brother.

She didn’t know what she’d done to make Basil so frustrated with her. Did Arkęh:nen hold grudges against acquaintances whom they didn’t know that well? She hadn’t even gotten his last name yet.

She didn’t know Maywood well, either, but that didn’t stop her from defending Avery. Before Avery could ask where she was taking her, Maywood paused and yelled at Cameron and Basil to keep up. Cameron, sticking their nose up at Basil, followed them back into Arkęh:na. Basil followed like a scolded puppy.

Maywood said sweet, encouraging-sounding Arkęh:nen words to Avery. While not catching a lot, Avery heard, “okay,” “bad,” “brother,” and “angry.” She reminded Avery of a mother, but she didn’t know if it was because of Maywood’s need to take charge or because of her cane.

Maywood brought them back to Cameron’s den. She offered Avery Cameron’s bed, which she sat in to hide her face easily. When Cameron and Basil finally arrived—they dawdled a few seconds behind—Maywood sat Basil in the hole next to Avery.

Avery squirmed into the corner of the bed. Why did she put him right next to her, his number one most hated person above or below the surface? She hadn’t heard a lot of what he’d spat out at her near the gondolas, but she’d heard enough. His taut neck muscles and the spit that hit her face made his point clear.

Cameron helped Maywood sit down beside Avery, her bandaged legs disappearing into the bear pelt. Then Maywood ordered, “ _Tell her who we are_.”

“Fine,” Basil grumbled in English, then looked away from Avery to say, “This is Maywood, my sister. She works with the silkworms.”

“I’m sorry…for Basil,” Cameron said. “He’s bad.”

“Not,” Basil said, and Cameron fell into a rampage filled with finger pointing and leg kicking.

“Stop,” Maywood said, becoming the clear mediator of the two. She instructed Basil to say something again.

“It’s not to do with her,” Basil said. “I just dislike her.”

“Why?” Cameron asked. “Why her so much?”

“ _I think I know_ ,” Maywood said with her arms crossed.

“What do _you_ know?” Basil asked. “You won’t understand.”

“She is a sister,” Cameron pressed. “She knows things. Feel things.”

Basil slouched against the wall. He stared into the blankets and pillows, unblinking and stern.

Breaking their tension, Maywood said something without hesitance and without malice.

Basil took it like a knife to the heart. He kicked out so furiously that he accidentally kicked out a piece of rock from the wall. He sputtered out ridiculous questions and what sounded like uncalled insults.

“What did she say?” Avery dared to ask.

Cameron picked at their head scar. “Uh…”

“Don’t,” Basil warned.

“He likes me.”

“ _Liked_! Past tense!” he corrected. “You are a friend now. Just a friend.”

“You had a crush on Cameron?” Avery asked.

“No! As a kid. School kids. They…We are friends now. Friends only.”

“No,” Maywood said.

“Yes!” Basil moaned. “Why do you do this now? I hate Autreans! She is Autrean, and she is friends now with Cameron, so I care!”

“You…have no right,” Cameron said. “Me and Avery are me and Avery, not you and me. Avery and me…”

“Are what?”

“Not yours.”

They kept arguing back and forth, breaking between the two languages, but Avery understood. She’d pegged down Basil’s frustrations on things she didn’t understand, but that glimmer in his eyes, the holdback in his tone to be both heard and accepted, Avery understood it perfectly, even though it didn’t excuse the way he’d treated her.

“I…understand,” Avery said, not caring who heard anymore. “I’m that way, too.”

The den quieted. Maywood’s back rubs steadied to a supportive hand resting between her shoulder blades.

“I don’t have friends,” Avery continued. “I only keep my phone on me to talk to my parents when they’re not busy. It’s been hard to make friends.”

“Me,” Cameron said. “Me, too.”

Even though she wanted to, Avery kept her gaze fixated on everything but Cameron. “I had one friend back in middle school—from the past, when I was younger—who I liked so much that it hurt to keep those feelings from her. One day, when we were having so much fun, I told her how I felt, and she…” She stifled back a few tears before they fell. “She didn’t like me back. She hated how I felt about her and stopped talking to me. Now I have no one. I have no friends, my parents are always working. I have nobody I can go to for help. But then I found Cameron.”

Cameron shuffled the blankets, shuffling everyone.

The tears sunk Avery’s head into her knees. “I’ve never felt so happy to be myself around someone like this before. I feel safe. I feel _happy_. Cameron, they like my art, they don’t make fun of me for what I do. And Basil, you remind me so much of myself from back then, so scared and alone, unable to figure out what’s wrong with me. I relate to everything you’re feeling, and I’m sorry I put you through it.”

Maywood turned to fully embrace Avery, shushing her and bringing her back to her normal. Basil kept staring in the same direction. Avery didn’t know what Cameron looked like or was feeling or if they’d understood half of what she’d gushed out, but she had to say it.

“It hurt,” Basil said.

Avery looked up. He had his hand over his heart, staring directly at Avery.

Avery nodded. “It does.”

“It felt bad.”

“I know.”

“It was…empty?”

All too familiar with the feelings Bridget left her with, Avery nodded. “I’m sorry. If I’d known you and Cameron used to have something…”

“I never had it in the first place,” he said, defeated. “I’m sorry for what I did. I was angry.”

“That’s okay. Thank you for apologizing.”

Basil scratched a scab off of his cheek, then almost mimicked Avery’s pose, hiding his face in a scrunched up pose. “Honest, I don’t talk to many Autreans. I don’t know them. You, you are not bad, different. I know the Autreans only is bad because of what my Moeder do in the past. I think they take away Arkęh:nens and break apart families. I didn’t want that for Cameron, but you are good for Cameron.”

With his speech over, Basil sat up and crawled out of bed. “Sorry to say you don’t belong,” he added. “I think you do, with Cameron. That is clear.”

“ _Sorry about this_ ,” Maywood said to Avery. “ _I hope you can forgive him for all this_.”

“ _I have_ ,” Avery said back.

With a nervous bow, Basil ran out into the corridor with his sister not far behind. She gave Avery a wave, which Avery had just enough time to return before Cameron collided into her side and hugged and hugged and hugged her.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry. No sad, don’t do that more.”

“I’m okay.”

“Sorry, sorry, don’t cry.”

Avery patted Cameron’s back like a baby to get them to let go. Their eyes looked glossier than before.

“Hey.” Avery wiped away their tears. “You’re not supposed to cry, too.”

“You…sad. You are sad.” They broke back into their native tongue. “ _I’m so sorry about Basil. I never knew his true feelings. If I had, I would’ve said something to him. He should’ve said something to_ me.”

“I had a feeling, being how possessive he was of you.”

Not understanding her, Cameron hugged Avery and rocked her back and forth. Even though they stood under five feet tall, in this moment they felt taller.

They held each other that way for minutes acting as hours. It could’ve been more; Avery hadn’t been counting. Soon Cameron moved around to her back and held her that way, spooning while sitting up, their arms locked around her waist. Avery didn’t move, as this gave her a way to examine their hands and arms. She discovered microscopic scars and scrapes that would never heal. When she noticed how dark their fingers looked from a life living in dirt, she went to touch it not realizing that, to someone holding her, it felt like instigating a hand hold.

Cameron interlocked their fingers with hers. They rubbed their warm face against her back until she felt their lips graze against her shirt.

Avery detached herself from the hug. She didn’t have anything to say, but the way Cameron was looking at her was a new type of look, a look she’d longed for from anyone who could look at her and not get bored of what they saw.

When Cameron started moving forwards, one hand on Avery’s thigh, the other on her hip, Avery moved back to give herself more time—Was she doing everything right, did she smell, was she misinterpreting this as something more or less than what it actually meant? But when Cameron’s breath kissed her parted lips, her brain fogged over with timid desire.

The kiss came slow, like a practice test for more to come. They each pulled back a few times to change position or to make the other feel more loved. Hands touched backs, shoulders. The sound of haggard breath through noses almost drowned out the sounds of lips smacking, almost.

When they pulled back for good, Cameron smiled, and Avery smiled, too, and for once she didn’t feel guilty about the feelings inside of her.

Keeping on their smile, Cameron helped Avery out of bed.

They led her back to the atmospheric corridor where the Rivière narrowed into a smaller river. Gondolas bounced between one another, absent of a steerer, leaving them alone with the sound of calm waves.

“ _What’s this for_?” Avery asked in Arkęh:nen.

“ _Nothing but a ride_ ,” Cameron said, and knelt down and picked up a lantern with three firebugs in it. Gentle rubs lit them up, giving off a warm, guiding light against the rocks.

Avery steadied herself as she stepped into one of the wet gondolas. Her and Cameron’s combined weight made it sink a bit, but it managed to bobble in the water without capsizing.

Still standing, Cameron kicked off the rocks. They didn’t have an oar, but as they were about to hit the wall, Cameron grabbed hold of a wooden peg sticking out from the rock above and steered them away from danger. A few feet ahead, another stuck out, illuminated by blue and purple rocks. Cameron gave them a fondle before steering the boat back into the middle of the river.

Avery watched them without fear of who was watching. She didn’t care where the river led her or what she and Cameron had just become. With a newfound smile, she let the river guide her down a new, unexplored path.


	13. The Oak Tree

 

Cameron had always believed Basil’s English to be near perfect, but hearing him and Avery speak it together, it made sense how little Basil really knew. And it made Cameron feel like all their efforts into understanding the language was all for naught, for when they spoke to one another, Cameron couldn’t keep up. It would take years to reach Basil’s level of English, and even more to be as good as Avery.

“You say it like this,” Avery said to Basil in English, then added to the complexity by adding a whole bunch of words Cameron didn’t understand. They all sat together in the Centrum, they, Avery, Basil, and Maywood. Maywood had gotten out of work early alongside Basil, and Cameron had just finished up scouring through the tunnles and finding little to no gemmes before Avery had come down to visit.

Cameron didn’t mind Avery getting to know their friends in newer ways, but not being able to pick up English as easily as Avery could pick up Arkęh:nen bugged Cameron in the most childish of ways. They’d shared a kiss with her, yet they couldn’t share with her how relieving it felt to now be with her.

Tearing off a beetle’s head, Cameron chewed their contempt into their cheek as they watched Avery and Basil talk. Maywood bided her time knitting a pair of slippers for an upcoming baby. Whenever Cameron tore into another beetle, she giggled to herself.

“If it makes you feel better, I don’t understand half of what they’re saying,” she told Cameron.

“It doesn’t,” Cameron whispered, staring at Avery’s smile. “We should be practicing together. I want to learn it, too. Basil already talks it fine.”

“Then ask her.”

Something Basil must’ve said in English promoted Avery to laugh out loud. When Basil saw her reaction, he chuckled back and hit her playfully on her knee.

Stuffing three whole beetles in their mouth, Cameron crawled over to them in their hands and knees and shook Avery. “What did he say?”

“Nothing,” she said, containing her giggles. “A thing about a cave-in. You made it?”

“It was an accident! Basil, don’t tell her this.”

“They were upside down in the cave for hours,” Basil explained. “It was pretty funny.”

“Yeah, but not when it was happening,” Cameron defended.

Still, Avery kept laughing until she pulled something out of her pocket. It was an orange gemme, one of the stones Cameron had presented her. “This, Cameron. Basil tells me its name is a color. What is it?”

“Orange gemme,” Cameron said simply.

“Yes. I think it’s called citrine. It’s what Autrean’s call this.”

“Citrine?”

“Yeah,” Basil said. “I once snuck into an Autrean store and read a book about rocks. It had this rock with a similar word above it, I just didn’t know how to pronounce it.”

“No wonder you got transferred,” Maywood said.

“But no wonder he knows this much,” Avery said.

Cameron reevaluated their most prized gemme. All this time they’d only called their gemmes by their colors. They never felt like the right person to name them. How many citrines had they collected over the years without ever knowing it? And how many other gemmes—gemstones—existed outside of citrines? What about the red gemmes and brown gemmes, the green and blue ones. Did they have names, too?

Cameron rolled the citrine in Avery’s hand. She needed to tell them all the Autrean names for gemmes firsthand, at the heart of where Mother Earth birthed them.

“Avery,” Cameron said, “do you want to go inside the tunnles with me?”

They didn’t have to translate it into English for Avery to understand. While her eyes lit up with excitement at the unknown, Basil and Maywood became rigid at the invitation.

“What?” Maywood asked.

“You can’t do that,” Basil pointed out immediately. “Even when I go into the tunnles I get bad looks from the Community. To bring a fully Autrean girl in there would make the Community mad.”

“She’s been accepted by the Grandmoeders, she’ll be accepted by the tunnles.”

“But the tunnles are the more sacred places in Arkęh:na,” Maywood said. “They’ll be wary of her. I think you should wait until the next year comes around, just to be sure that she’s been fully accepted.”

“I think she can see them now. She’s been in my bed, she’s been to the gondolas _and_ the Grandmoeder’s Den. Seeing the tunnles—the uninhabited ones—might finally seal her in as an Arkęh:nen.”

“You should ask around, just to be sure,” Basil said. “Make sure everyone is truly okay with it.”

“Not every person needs to know about what me and Avery do.”

“Coming from the one person who knows about every person _in_ Arkęh:na.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know when they drain their waste buckets, either.”

When Basil gagged at the thought of waste buckets, Cameron stood up on their bad knees and took Avery’s hand. “Come with me.”

“Where?” she asked. “Which tunnles?”

“Not yet. First, we have to stop by my den.”

For typical excavating, Cameron didn’t bring with them any lanterns or firebugs, but now they had a partner to care of. And even more, they weren’t just going to extract gemmes, but rather show them off, to let Avery into the tightest hole in their heart to see what it meant to be an excavator. They’d had the idea for days, maybe even weeks, but it never felt right until now. Now, Cameron felt like sharing their world with Avery forever.

After reaching their den, Cameron strapped on their backpack and tied a lantern around a sturdy walking stick.

“What is it be?” Avery asked, hovering near their den’s entrance. “Caving?”

“Caving is like getting lost on purpose,” Cameron explained, “and not being afraid about what you’ll find.”

“I’m a bit scared,” Avery confessed.

“What? Why?”

“Trap.”

“You won’t get trapped. I’ll protect you.” Keeping their back to her, Cameron smiled at themselves. “If you get scared, you can hold onto me.”

“That is a lot.”

“A lot of what?”

When they didn’t receive an answer, Cameron tickled her sides until she squeaked out her nervous fears. Then they caught Nuvu hanging on their metal mesh. “You wanna come?” they asked her. “Tunnles, Nuvu. Wanna come?”

Nuvu nibbled on her thumb, thinking it over.

“You’re gonna be awful lonely here by yourself. I’m planning to spend a _long_ time in there with Avery.”

Sensing their playful tone, Avery made a cooing noise and reached out her hand to Nuvu.

They hissed at her, but made a move to come closer, interested to see if Avery had any grubs.

Cameron took out a fried beetle and placed it in Avery’s hand.

Nuvu clicked, cocked her head from side to side, then swooped down at ate cautiously from Avery’s hand.

Avery contained herself the best she could, holding back her smile at Nuvu’s acceptance.

Cameron side-eyed her. “ _Maybe she will…let you sleep here_ ,” they dropped semi-casually, pretending they hadn’t been secretly hoping for that reality for the past week.

Avery just smiled and made her way out of the den. Cameron was sure they’d said that right in English. Whenever they spoke the strange language, they worried about saying something wrong or hurtful, but it didn’t seem like they could do anything to hurt her.

They took their favorite route out to the Main tunnles, which, thankfully, started on the second layer and not the first. Keeping their steps light and their head up, Cameron quietly led Avery through people’s front doors and into the dark entrance.

Avery’s grip tightened around Cameron’s hand. Without the Sun, the tunnles must’ve been an experience for her. To help her, Cameron kicked away rocks from their path and held her hand tight until they reached the most open part of the caves.

They wondered if Avery felt more at peace alone in these tunnles than in Arkęh:na. As soon as Cameron closed the wooden door, they heard her exhale and calm down her breathing. Looking less and less at her feet, Avery craned her neck up to the steep, cramped walls glisten with gemmes slick with water.

Easing into her ways, Cameron led Avery north towards the more scenic tunnles. Here, the walls expanded for more air, more access to the Rivière’s streams. Ancient logs held up parts of the walls, but most of the rocks held themselves up with aged pride. Continuous water from the surface dripped down the walls and puddled the ground around them. Ladders and bridges helped them cross the wider abysses, but Avery still held onto them as if she didn’t believe the tunnles would like her.

“It’s okay,” Cameron said as they crossed a small bridge.

Avery kept both hands on Cameron’s shoulders. “This’s your job? You do this every day?”

“Yeah, it’s fun.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“I should excavate some gemmes to show you. If you hit it right, the walls shake.”

Avery ducked down her head as if Cameron could predict the future.

When they touched down to solid ground again, Cameron followed a trail of water down towards the gondolas. “It’s not that bad so long as you know where you’re going. See these?” They showed her some of their newer kaart scars. “I made these tunnles this year. You can make some, too, or watch me do it, if you want.”

“It reminds me of when I get stuck in the rocks. I like walking, like this. This is not scary.”

Cameron slowed down. “Do you want to head back?”

Despite shaking, Avery shook her head. “I want to see more.”

The tunnles opened up for them in winding, luminescent paths. The brighter gemmes shone with joy as they gleefully lit the way. Nuvu, who flew back and forth through the tunnles, landed on the brighter gemmes to catch stray spiders and cave flies.

“Oh!” Avery ran up ahead to a bridge connecting two paths. She admired the stalagmites sticking out from the steady Rivière, which mirrored the stalactites above. Droplets of water dropped from the ceiling and made ripples, but none of them hit Avery or Cameron.

Cameron nudged up against Avery.

“Cool,” Avery said. “They shine. How?”

“Maybe from magic.”

“I don’t know. They’re pretty.”

“They are.” Cameron ran a finger through the still waters. “Can I show you something even prettier?”

Trusting Cameron and their knowledge, Avery followed their way. After taking the prettier routes and watching Avery’s eyes sparkle in the ponds, they came up to the site. No Arkęh:nen considered it that sacred or magical, but knowing Avery, she would find it just as beautiful as she herself was.

Avery’s shoulders drooped like the tree’s mighty branches. Before them, at the end of the tunnle’s dead end, stood a mighty tree. It somehow found peace growing within the tunnle itself. Its branches stretched towards an opening in the ceiling, which let go a single stream of sunlight. Flecks of snow glittered across the leaves struggling to keep on the branches.

Avery caressed the tree’s bark. She kept looking up to the hole giving off its needed light. Maybe she knew how trees did it, how they could grow in such an unhealthy spot and still continue to live out of stubbornness and safety from bears and squirrels.

“Wow,” Avery awed. “This is pretty.  _Cameron, this’s so pretty!”_

She’d said the last part in English, but Cameron had memorized the phrase enough to remember how it sounded. “ _I know_ ,” they said. “ _It is, like you_.”

Again, she didn’t respond. The forcefulness of Cameron’s need to compliment her didn’t sound right in their ears, but they wanted to let her know that it was okay and that saying such things was alright when they were alone. What better time to express yourself than alone with the person you cherished? Cameron thought they’d been doing everything right, but after their kiss, it felt like Avery had no interest in continuing what they’d started.

Cameron looked up at her, remembering how tall she looked when they’d first met. It took a few moments, but Avery finally looked back, snagged.

Cameron took one of her hands. They tried to think of how to explain themselves and their feelings to her in both Arkęh:nen and English, but nothing sounded right. They wanted to sound poetic and lovely. They wanted Avery to  _get_ everything that’d been stored in their brain since they’d met, but they didn’t have the words for it.

Catching her eyes one last time, Cameron’s body moved on its own. Standing up on their tiptoes, Cameron leaned over and kissed Avery on her parted lips.

Unlike last time they’d kissed, instead of panicked admiration, Cameron felt nothing but dread. She wasn’t kissing back. There was hesitation on her tongue. Was this right? Should they’d pulled away by now? They’d told Avery that they’d never had a girlfriend or boyfriend before. Was she judging them on how they kissed?

Shivering with fear, Cameron fell back and went to apologize.

Without a moment to breathe, Avery took back Cameron’s face and kissed them back with double the force.

Cameron tripped and bit their tongue. Never before had they felt so much of her, so unapologetically her. They’d noticed her looks, her holding gazes when she thought Cameron wasn’t looking, but never this forthright.

Not questioning what’d happened, Cameron kissed her back and tried not to screw anything up.

But then she pulled back so quickly that Cameron fell into her chest.

“What’s wrong?” Cameron asked, but when they asked, they had to look up, and when they did, they caught sight of Avery’s fear.

A pebbled had fallen between them. Then another one. Then three more.

It happened in less than an eye blink. A dozen equally-sized pebbles dusted their heads only to be followed by boulders that roared with fury. The world crumbled. The lantern cracked and scattered the firebugs. Cameron had only lived through these twice and had been taught what to do, but with Avery right next to them, they didn’t know how to act.

Their hands moved on their own. Hitting her hard, Cameron unfroze Avery and shoved her away from them just as a tower of rocks cascaded between them.

The cold, heavy rocks numbed Cameron’s body. Dust went up their nose and stung their throat, choking them, blinding them. They heard Avery’s screams die out as the new wall of rock shifted and the cave-in came to an eerily quiet end.

Cameron spit out rock. The cave-in continued in their chest, rumbling their tossed innards. It took Avery screaming their name for the fourth time before they found their shaky, blurry feet.

Seeing double, Cameron held themselves up with help from the rocks. “Avery?”

“Cameron!”

Cameron dropped their head on the gritty wall. She was alive. Whatever had befallen her, she’d survived, and that was all that mattered.

“Cameron, help! Help me! Trapped!”

“I-I’ll get you out,” they promised, not really thinking over their words. “Wait here.”

“No, don’t leave me!”

Casting aside their broken lantern, Cameron stumbled back home. The realization that they’d caused yet another collapse didn’t hit them as harshly as Avery’s safety did. They needed help to get her out, that much was clear, but if the Community had been injured, who would be able to help her?  The simple tools Cameron had brought with them could only handle small cave-ins in controlled environments. Would could they do with a hand-sized shovel or chipped pickaxe?

“ _Cameron_!”

They had to make sure everyone was safe first, for Avery’s sake.

 


	14. Cameron's Mistake

What should’ve been a half-hour sprint back into Arkęh:na stretched into an hour-long slog. The cave-in had affected the quickest route back into Arkęh:na’s main levels. The main tunnles, gone. The shortcuts, destroyed. It kept Cameron in the dark about the Community’s safety and lessened Avery’s chance at getting saved.

When they finally reached Arkęh:na, they entered into a world of disorder. The ville had been abandoned. Arkęh:nen ran about with no direction. Pieces of the wall and ceiling had crumbled into pieces, and the Centrum had lost one of its high pillars, leaving their whole world tilted.

The wall sharing the silkworm huts and Grandmoeders’ Den had collapsed. No light from the outside came through, but a steady slope had slipped into the Community. The school beside it had barely been saved. Moeders and Faders tried gathering all the children they could find and herded them away from the disaster zone. Stronger Arkęh:nen helped dig out the affected huts as others watched on, helpless.

From the wreckage, two workers pulled out a struggling Maywood. She’d lost her cane and was trying desperately to get back to the silkworms.

“Get him! Get— _Basil_!”

Cameron stopped running towards them. They’d tried so hard to keep faithful to the Arkęh:nen ways. Why was fate doing this to them? What had they done wrong?

One woman came out from the ruined hut coughing. She had Basil draped lifelessly over her shoulders.

“Moeder,” Cameron breathed out.

Sweat and dirt coated their Moeder’s face as she laid Basil on his back, careful about his leg. It didn’t look broken, but it was bruised and puffy from swelling.

Basil moaned and covered his face in shame. “I’m sorry. I went back for Maywood, but I couldn’t find her.”

“It’s okay,” Cameron’s Moeder said. “Just stay calm.”

Around Cameron, whispers spread.

“What happened?”

“Is anyone else hurt?”

“How’re the Grandmoeders?”

Cameron took in the Community’s worries with a sinking head. They had no proof that they were the one responsible for the collapse, but the last two collapses in Arkęh:nen history had resulted around them. Once because they’d excavated a tunnle wrong, the other, absolutely random, yet just outside of their own den.

Cameron covered their mouth with both hands. A sickness not from their stomach was trying to retch its way out of their throat. Just when they thought they’d pass out from fear, Avery’s screams rang through their body, reminding them of where they were.

“M-Moeder!” Cameron shouted, running up to her. “Moeder, Avery’s in the tunnles. She’s underneath some rubble. I knew I wouldn’t be strong enough to help, but if we don’t get her out soon—” They doubled over in pain. They still hadn’t gotten the dust out of their lungs. They coughed out phlegm and something dark, maybe blood, before their Moeder touched their shoulder.

Cameron tried controlling themselves before acknowledging their Moeder’s kindness.

“Where is she?” she asked.

“In the tunnle.”

“ _Where_?”

Cameron swallowed hard both from coughing and from nerves. Their Moeder hadn’t taken their hand off of them. “Near the oak tree in the northeast corner. I just wanted to show it to her.”

“You brought her into the tunnles?” one person asked.

“She’s Autrean,” another said.

“Not everyone can be accepted in the tunnles.”

“It’s probably what caused the quake in the first place.”

“Do you realize what you’ve done?”

Cameron could no longer handle it and fell to their knees in horrible humiliation. Boulders larger than all of Arkęh:na weighed down on their shoulders, compacting them into a worthless gemme. Born to a Moeder psychic, deserted by a heretic Fader, and disowned by the very gemmes they loved, Cameron belonged nowhere near the home their actions had hurt.

A hush fell upon the crowds. Cameron’s Moeder finally took her hand off of her child as she rose to see something above the crowds’ heads. Cameron stayed on their knees until their curiosity overtook their shattered dignity and they looked up.

All five Grandmoeders stood accounted for in their Den tunnle. The smallest one, Grandmoeder Geneva, stood in front of them all, her chin high, her leadership even higher. Their attendants, with their wide, unblinking eyes, held out their hands in case an elder fell.

Cameron, as well as every other Arkęh:nen in earshot, bowed their heads. Sweat dripped off Cameron’s nose as they waited to hear their punishment.

Grandmoeder Geneva spoke first. “Who here is hurt?”

“Basil seems to have broken his ankle,” Cameron’s Moeder said. “We also have two psychics who’ve gotten hurt as well as a handful of artisans, though the numbers aren’t exact yet. So far, no one’s been killed.”

Cameron’s throat tightened. Not only Avery, not only Basil, but now two psychics, an uncountable amount of artisans, their own _Moeder_. The Grandmoeders shouldn’t have wasted their precious energy in banishing them. A true Arkęh:nen would’ve walked to the surface and never returned again.

Their Moeder motioned for Cameron to stand, a light tap on their back. “Tell them what you just told me,” she instructed.

“I can’t.”

“You must. Think about Avery.”

“What happened to her?” Grandmoeder Nai asked. “Where is she? Don’t tell me she’s responsible for this.”

In a desperate act to save themselves, Cameron almost blamed Avery for their own actions, but they couldn’t do that to her. Not now.

Cameron swallowed down their pride and stared at Grandmoeder Geneva’s mouth instead of her eyes. “I went into the tunnles, with Avery.”

“You brought her into the tunnles?” Grandmoeder Nai asked. “How dare you. How could you think to bring her there?”

“I’m sorry.”

“She who can’t see in the dark, who has never been in our tunnles before, you thought she could handle that?”

Cameron covered their head, their eyes clenched shut. When would this end? When could they just reunite with Avery again and have her ease their anxieties like she always could?

“We might want to take in Cameron’s side of the story before we chastise them on something that may or may not have been from a result of their rendezvous with their friend,” Grandmoeder Geneva said.

“You can’t always take their side just because they’re your grandchild,” Grandmoeder Nai said. “Take responsibility for their actions.”

“No!” Cameron blurted out. “Please, don’t take responsibility for what I’ve done. This was all my fault. I told her to go. I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

Grandmoeder Geneva didn’t break eye contact with Cameron. “I think of every Arkęh:nen as my child, Nai. I don’t choose favorites. I just want answers that’ll help move Arkęh:na forward. Without Cameron’s side of the story, we are at a standstill, and your own grandson’s injuries will be based on nothing.”

At this, Grandmoeder Nai finally looked down at her grandson struggling to sit up with Maywood’s help. Her face softened, but she didn’t say anything to her half-Autrean grandson.

Grandmoeder Geneva looked down at Cameron. Her usual smile was lost, along with part of Arkęh:na. “Tell us what happened.”

Cameron breathed out slowly. “I was walking with Avery, showing her the sights and sounds of the tunnles. I brought her to the oak tree thinking she’d love it, and she did. Then we…we kissed…and then the walls collapsed.” They pointed to the area on their kaart. They couldn’t stop their finger from shaking from what they’d just confessed. “We weren’t doing anything wrong. We were just standing, and hugging, and then…”

“The walls collapsed here, too,” Cameron’s Moeder said, saving Cameron from talking anymore.

“Then it couldn’t have been from you alone,” Grandmoeder Geneva said. “Unless you bear the forces of an earthquake, it seems this was just an unfortunate situation brought onto us by fate.”

“But Avery,” Cameron said. “Grandmoeder Geneva, Avery’s trapped. She could be underneath rubble or buried or worse. I don’t know, but I—I-I—” They coughed, spit and snot jumping off of their face. When they opened their eyes, they saw a harsh amount of blood mixed in with their phlegm.

Their Moeder inhaled at the sight. Two hands touched Cameron’s shoulders instead of one.

“Can you show us where she is now?” Grandmoeder Geneva asked.

Conflicting answers arose in Cameron’s heart. “Not you. Please. It’s too far away. Let me go.”

“I’ll go,” Cameron’s Moeder said. “Can I take a few others?”

“…I’ll go,” one man said from the back of the crowd. When Grandmoeder Geneva surveyed the crowd with a wordless gaze, she pulled in a few others to volunteer.

“Wait,” Cameron said. “Please, let me go. It’s my fault fate has done this to Avery. Let me be the one to help her,  _please_.”

Their Moeder gave this some thought, looking her child over. “I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“I won’t!”

“Can you control yourself?”

Cameron lowered their voice and energy. “I will.”

“Then get your things.”

Cameron sprinted for their den, coughing into the open air to get there faster. Once they reached seclusion, they got out all of their hindering coughing, then dug out their heavy duty shovels and their very own pickaxe. Checking their room one last time to see if Nuvu had flown back home, Cameron ran to save Avery.


	15. Runaway

Avery had always wondered what passing out would feel like. She’d seen movies where people lost consciousness, and whenever she had to stand up in front of class to give a presentation, the fear of fainting always hid in the back of her mind. She’d thought she had the skill not to make a fool of herself, but after screaming Cameron’s name for them to return, she slipped away. She didn’t even remember when it happened, but when she awoke, the horrible fear of being trapped pressed sharply into her lungs.

She could still breathe—she had to count her smallest of blessings—but she couldn’t see anything, her leg had been twisted to an uncomfortable angle, and a pile of dirt and rock blanketed her chest. Whenever she breathed, the rocks above her shifted, threatening to crush her completely.

Why had Cameron left her behind? Surely she’d said everything correctly, so why hadn’t they come back? Why hadn’t they stayed back for just a moment to comfort her in this environment she had no knowledge about in a situation so dire?

Another wave of panic suffocated her. She started breathing more and more until she was wheezing in the dusty air. The coldness of the cave crept down her back and numbed her fingertips. When she felt something light touch her cheek, she imagined a long-legged spider and thrashed to keep it from entering her mouth.

Then she heard it: footsteps. Savior footsteps, stranger footsteps. Nonetheless, Avery screamed to be heard. “Help!”

The person brought with them a dainty light source that barely illuminated the rocks around them. Avery had imagined the rocks as boulders incapable of moving, but it turned out to be a soft mountain of pebbles fused together to create a wall.

“Hello?” Avery asked. “Cameron?”

The person spoke in Arkęh:nen, then loomed over her.

It was Cameron’s Moeder. She kept her face calculated and emotionless, but she set aside her lantern to fondle Avery’s cheek.

Avery welled up at the touch of another person. “I’m trapped. I can’t move. I couldn’t—I was scared.”

“ _Can you feel your legs_?” she asked in Arkęh:nen.

“ _No. A little. They’re…_ ” She couldn’t remember the word for “numb,” so she said, “ _It hurts_.”

Checking the stability of the wall, Cameron’s Moeder tried to move it only for pieces of it to fall on Avery’s face.

Cameron’s Moeder took in the gravity of the situation with a bit lip, then shouted something at rocks. At first, Avery thought she was trying to communicate with them, but then she heard muffled voices from the other side. They talked back and forth with Cameron’s Moeder, and she nodded to herself and rubbed Avery’s cheek like a mother would. Then she put her arms around Avery’s armpits.

“Wait, wait—”

Pain radiated down her lower back. Her upper half pulled away from the wreckage while her legs refused to move. Avery felt someone grab her boot and push, and she didn’t have a say in it. It hurt, but before she could tell them to stop, she started coming loose like a tooth around decaying gums. She tried her best to swat away falling rocks, but they broke on her as soon as they fell.

Bright light shone through the wall. People shoveled out remaining rocks to keep the whole thing from toppling over and, through the hole, exerting themselves so hard they were sweating, was Cameron. They had dirt caked underneath their fingernails and scratches on their face, but they smiled at Avery the moment their eyes met.

Tears fell down Avery’s own dirt-covered cheeks. Even though she’d been freed, the suffocating feelings stayed inside of her, growing like a uncontrollable fire.

Cameron crawled through the wall and went to hug her.

Avery shoved them back. “Why did you leave me all alone? Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving? You left almost immediately and I didn’t know what’d happened to you!”

Cameron stepped back. “I—The Community…” They struggled for the right words. “I need to see them first. Then I help you.”

Avery didn’t know how to take that, mostly because she ran away before they could finish. The anger and distrust she felt overpowered reason and pain, and she kept running just to make sure she would never feel that trapped ever again.

The small niche the tree had grown in for so many years had been destroyed. The oak had been uprooted, now halfway out of the ground, creating a bridge to the surface.

Before any of them stopped her, before Avery had a moment to rethink herself, she climbed across the dead tree and broke for the night world above.

A coating of slippery frost and autumn leaves coated the steep mountainside. Surprised that her legs hadn’t come back to her, Avery instantly lost her footing down the path and toppled several feet. She tried to stop herself, but every stump and outcrop knocked the wind out of her and filled her mouth with ice cold dirt.

She stopped halfway down the hill, staring up at the starry sky on her back.

On her back.

She’d left her backpack in Arkęh:na.

She breathed out puffs of air, watching them disappear into darkness. As pain pounded against her back, she wiped off her sopping jeans, hugged her arms close to her aching body, and made her way back home.

 

──✧──

 

Avery sometimes thought her dogs were human. The way they acted, the way they recognized human emotion. When she trudged through the brambles and bushes and hit the driveway, they sprung up as one expected of two huskies. They barked, pulling on their leashes, trying to reach Avery from inside the garage. But once they saw her disheveled nature, they drew back in whimpers.

Avery hurt too much to fully indulge in their hugs and licks, so she just pet each of their heads and limped for the kitchen door.

The door thrust open before she touched the handle. Her father, holding his breath with wide eyes, flung open the door, the bodyguard of the house.

Avery looked at him, a full 6’5” man built for construction, and he looked at her, his daughter more dirt than human being.

The first sniffle cascaded Avery in a rainfall of tears. She’d saved face in front of Cameron’s Moeder and in the presense of the forest, but against him, she couldn’t hold back. Falling against him, Avery clung to his sides and cried.

He immediately hugged back. “Christ. Juniper, she’s here. It’s her. Avery, what happened? Where’ve you been? Are you okay?”

Her mother was already at the door before Avery’s father stopped talking. She threw her walking cane into the wall, spooking the dogs, and collapsed against Avery. Her sobs were more contained than Avery’s and became gasps in her throat.

Avery bit her cheek. Her mother’s embrace felt more crushing than the rocks.

“W-Were you still on line with the police?” her father asked.

Her mother didn’t say anything and held Avery tighter, hurting her, loving her, in ways Avery had never felt before. Not even when she’d fallen into the fissure a year ago had her mother acted like this, so careful, so saddened.

Avery’s father did what he could and took hold of the phone, which had been thrown against the couch. “Yes, hello. It’s Ethan. She just came home. She’s okay. She’s scraped and bruised—Avery, what happened?”

“I-I got caught in a cave-in. I lost my backpack. I couldn’t get out.”

Avery’s father retold the story to the person on the phone, and terrible guilt pushed Avery away from her mother’s heaving chest. The police would come regardless to hear her story about what really happened. They would find out her secret about Arkęh:na and question her about questions she didn’t want to answer right now. All she wanted was her bed, her dogs, and her music on max to drown out everything trying to drown her.

Her mother held her at arm’s reach. Her face was red, but not tearful. “Do you need anything? Is anything broken, anything hurt?”

“My legs hurt. My lower half got buried.”

Her mother hobbled towards the kitchen. Avery, suddenly alone despite everyone talking about her, picked up her mother’s cane and walked it over to her.

“Get off your legs,” her mother instructed. “Sit down in the living room. Ethan, get some blankets. She’s freezing. Get the heated one.”

Her mother and father bombarded her with care. Blankets, pillows, dinner from that night, and hot chocolate flocked to her. She ate her meal scalding to not worry her parents any longer.

“So you feel okay?” her father asked.

“Yeah, I just hurt all over. I’m sorry for making you worry. I lost my bag.”

“I don’t care about the bag,” her mother said. “Avery, we thought you got kidnapped or that you died…” She stopped herself before her mind went someplace dark. “No more exploring in the forest, okay? You’re done.”

As much as Avery wanted to argue that the forest was her safe place, she found herself nodding. “Okay.”

Then her mother hugged her once more, and that somehow made Avery cry more.

With her stomach full and body warm, Avery walked up to her room with her mother’s help. Her mother even allowed something she’d never allowed since getting them: She let Pumpkin and Oreo upstairs on the carpet. It could’ve been because someone drove up the driveway with their lights on—a police car—but her father motioned to them that he would handle it. Pumpkin and Oreo didn’t complain, and neither did Avery.

Pumpkin and Oreo cuddled around the bed as Avery’s mother propped up Avery’s legs with pillows. Aside from bruising, they looked fine, but her mother didn’t take her eyes off of them, her hands itching to touch wounded skin.

“I’m sorry,” Avery repeated. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“Don’t apologize. I’m sure you did everything you could’ve done.”

“I don’t think I did.”

The front door opened to a stern-sounding man asking her father questions.

Avery buried her face in Pumpkin’s fur.

“It’s okay,” her mother said. “We’ll take care of it. You’re not in trouble.”

“I feel like I am. I shouldn’t have gone as far as I did.”

“Don’t worry about that right now.” She touched her again. “No more woods, okay? No more woods for a while.”

“I get it.” She wiped her frozen nose on Pumpkin and waited until the door closed. She wondered if the session with the officer was over or if her father politely took the conversation outside. “Mom, can I ask you a question?”

“No, your Forest Ban isn’t over yet. It just started.”

Avery almost smiled, but her feelings reconsidered that. “With Cameron, do you think…”

She stopped, this time on her own. What was she going to ask? What did her mother need to know about them, someone who she didn’t even like in the first place? Even after forcing herself away from Cameron— _yelling_ at them—they couldn’t leave Avery’s mind.

“What about her? Did she have something to do with this?”

“No,” Avery lied. “Not really. I was going to meet them, but the cave-in stopped that from happening.” She covered her eyes completely in Pumpkin’s fur, burying herself. “Do you like them, Mom? Even if they’re strange, even if they believe in certain things, is it okay for me to be with them?”

“Well, I’ve never met this person before, so I’m not sure. Why do you ask?”

“Because I like being around them, but sometimes what they believe in and how they act is distant from me. Sometimes I don’t get it, and it makes me frustrated. Today, I think I…I said something mean to them, and I feel really bad about it.”

“Well, when you’re feeling better, you can text her and apologize. That’s what I do with my co-workers. If it’s really bad, call them.”

Avery sighed. She could never convince her mother that Cameron’s family didn’t have access to a phone, and she didn’t want to walk herself into a corner about not being able to see Cameron at school in a few days.

Someone opened the front door downstairs. “Jun, can you come down here for a second?”

Her mother sat up from Avery’s bed. “Are you okay like this?”

“I think,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Of course. Goodnight. And these two can stay up here tonight, but _just_ for tonight, alright?”

“Thank you.”

Once her mother left, Avery sat on her back and stared vacantly into the ceiling. She could still smell the musty cave scent on her hands. So badly had she wanted to tell her mother everything right there, about the cave people living underneath the mountains, about Cameron, about what they shared, but she lost her voice. Overcome with what’d happened, she beckoned Oreo onto her lap and cried into his black and white fur.


	16. New Year

The next month went by like the weather: slow, and cold. Her home got snowed in twice. Four inches of powdery white coated the balconies at all times. Storms cancelled half of her father’s work, her mother didn’t get called into the office, and her school lost almost all of their Fridays. Through late November and early December, Avery ghosted through her humdrum life with a foggy head.

Nothing about her life made sense after the cave-in. She didn’t feel depressed—she didn’t talk as much, and she didn’t smile, but she never talked or smiled a lot before Arkęh:na. She had nothing to be sad about, anyway; with Christmas coming into view, all she had to look forward to was spending time with her family.

She kept telling herself that during Christmas dinner.

“How much longer are you gonna be out in those mountains?” Avery’s grandmother asked Avery’s father during said dinner. “Your wife needs someone around the house to babysit this one, since she’s still under house arrest.”

“I’m happy with him working and earning money for the family,” Avery’s mother said.

“The plan is to be done around next summer,” Avery’s father said. “Avery, I was thinking we can go hiking together…in some newer parts of the forest. Do you want to go to Black River and hike up its riverbed?”

“No caves to get lost in there,” her grandfather said. “Hey, Avery, when did you get that necklace? It’s pretty.”

Avery stopped twirling Cameron’s necklace around her finger. Normally, she would hide the gift inside of her shirt, but it kept popping out, giving her hands something to play with.

“It _is_ pretty,” her grandmother added.

“I know,” Avery said. “A good friend gave it to me.”

“Was it from that witch friend of yours?”

Avery said nothing.

“I don’t think…” her father started, then restarted with, “You know, Ash, I wanted to ask you something about the business. I was thinking you take the next week off for your health…”

Avery slumped into her hand and continued fiddling with her necklace. Her mind told her to listen to the conversation and to be engaging and lighthearted, but she couldn’t. What she had with Cameron had been a falling out, a fallen tree in her trail, yet instead of picking a new way to walk, she’d been sitting in the middle of the wet dirt, lost.

Sighing so as not to provoke a reaction from her family, Avery looked up between her parents to watch the snow fall.

A pair of brown eyes locked onto hers. Through the frost-covered windows, Basil stared back at her. He hung from the balcony like a criminal peering through jail bars.

Catching her eyes, Basil then let go and jumped to the ground. By the sound of his fall, it sounded like he landed on his back.

Avery sprung up from her chair so non-suddenly that her chair barely made a sound when she stood. “I have to go.”

“Where?” her father asked.

“Uh, outside. I heard Pumpkin…fussing.”

“Don’t bring them in,” her mother said. “When Pumpkin sees the turkey, there’ll be no stopping her.”

“I won’t,” Avery said, not comprehending anything either parent had said. Excusing herself, she sped-walked towards the garage door.

Pumpkin’s and Oreo’s ears perked up, but after reading Avery’s tight body language, they fell back and trusted her judgements about walking outside without a jacket.

She trekked around to the side of the house. The thought of Basil being a mirage did tickle her mind, but she had to make sure. She couldn’t let her parents find an Arkęh:nen ex-scavenger lurking around their home before she did.

Basil stood casually against one of the porch’s support beams. He wore a fur jacket, thick and brown like a bear pelt, with a rabbit-fur hood framing his face in warm layers. He brought with him a pack meant for travel along with Avery’s backpack. Avery had lied about misplacing her bag and phone and her parents had easily bought her new ones, but her sketchbook, her pins…

Avery took one step back. “Hi.”

“ _Hey_.” He tossed her her backpack.

Avery held it like a child and opened it, revealing her untouched sketchbook and pins, everything but her phone.

“ _After the cave-in, none of the scavengers wanted to bring this back,”_ Basil said. _“Cameron kept sleeping with it. I thought it’d be healthier to bring it back_.”

Avery almost missed half of Basil’s words, but she caught up enough to understand him. “ _Thank you, but I thought you weren’t allowed outside. You’re not a scavenger_.”

Basil made a snide eye roll. “ _It’s easy to leave, it’s harder to stay away_.”

Avery looked over Basil’s stance. As he leaned against the support beam, he had one foot off the ground like a flamingo. Strange bandages wrapped around his ankle.

Once Basil noticed her staring, he pulled down his pant cuff.

“ _Are you okay_?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” he said, though Avery didn’t believe him. Then he said, “ _I left your fone with Cameron. It isn’t expensive, is it_?”

Avery didn’t know if he was being sarcastic, but with his curious expression hidden in his hood, she said, “ _No. It’s okay, but why did you leave it with them? How’re they doing_?”

Basil looked away. “ _They told me not to tell you_.”

“ _Tell me_.”

She hadn’t meant it to sound as forceful as it did, but Basil blinked back before saying, “ _They don’t leave their den often anymore. Only to bathe and eat, but it’s infrequent. And they’ve stopped talking to the Community. They feel like they don’t belong. A baby was born a week ago, and they still haven’t gone to see it. I’ve never seen them like this before_.”

Avery rubbed her arms, but not to keep warm.

“ _Do you hate them_?”

“ _No_ ,” she said instantly. “ _Never. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve been feeling scared and bad and…wrong, and I haven’t felt this way since meeting Cameron. Please tell them I’ll come back soon, okay? I just need to fix something inside of me, and I think I have to be alone to do that._ ”

“ _Fine_ ,” Basil said, verbally unsatisfied with her reasoning. “ _Hopefully that’ll make them happy_.” He looked up to the balcony he’d just jumped from. “Is this a holiday?”

“Yeah,” she said in English.

“Christmas?”

She nodded.

“Happy Christmas, then. I think this’s how you say this. I’m not…too sure…”

He stopped slowly as Avery, lowering her head, cried into the balls of her hands. She’d gone most of the holiday week keeping it together, so why now, in front of _Basil_ of all people, had she broken down? He’d just make fun of her and tell her to be better than this, something a big brother would say to the sister he, for some reason, hated.

Breaking the distance between them, Basil took Avery into his arms and held her until she felt warm.

 

──✧──

 

New Year’s came and went, and when school started up that Tuesday, the high Avery had struggled to keep up dissipated through the halls. She returned to her life of keeping her head down at her locker and trying to make the classroom clock move with her mind. Nobody asked about how her winter went, nobody asked about her caving adventures. The shortened school week carried on without Avery speaking a word to anyone.

The next week, her teachers handed out their midterms grades. The highest score Avery got was a 79 on her environmental science test. The rest dripped down like the icicles hanging off the gym roof. She didn’t dip far enough into the 50s, but she might as well have.

Right before lunch, Avery went to collect her bags when Mrs. Donnellon called her to her desk. Avery braced for the worst.

“Hi, Avery,” Mrs. Donnellon said. “Do you have lunch in this quarter, or do you have a study?”

“Study,” Avery said. “Did I do something wrong? I’m sorry about my grades.”

“You don’t have to apologize for that,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure everything was okay. You seem a little sad.”

“I’m fine.”

“I did get a call from your mother. You got in some type of accident right before break?”

Avery pushed down her beanie. “I just got stuck in the mountains. I’m okay now.”

“…Alright,” her teacher said, holding back what she really wanted to say. “If there’s anything wrong, be sure to tell one of your teachers, or me, since I’m technically your English teacher.”

Avery didn’t really understand the joke, but she smiled along as she edged towards the door.

She took her prepackaged lunch and headed for the library. With the amount of students crammed into her school, nobody would go looking for one missing student during study hall. She’d just play with her phone anyway, too scared to eat in front of others.

Their library resided on the first floor where the younger grades shuffled around. It had the least amount of renovations done to it compared to the whole school and still retained its creaky floors and story-tall bookshelves. Its long aisles and empty tables reminded Avery of getting lost in the forest. Before she’d found hiking, she’d spent several long, lonely years in this expansive room.

Finding her favorite shelf in the library—the comic book section—Avery picked up a random title and began reading. She found herself looking at the pictures more so than reading the story, partly due to her feelings, partly due to a class being held within the library’s recreational room. Its doors were closed, so Avery continued staring at the pictures, getting distracted by the lecture.

When the bell rang, students gathered their bags and filed out of the double doors.

Avery hid her face in her comic. Cameron would most definitely enjoy comics. Whenever Avery decided to return, she had to bring back a couple for them. They could read them together in ambient firebug light.

Someone came up behind her, their eyes digging into Avery’s backpack. Avery waited it out, hoping they’d leave, but they didn’t. Sighing, she peeked behind her to see who was upset with her now.

Bridget Rodríguez stared at Avery with her backpack halfway off of her shoulder, her books slipping out of her hands. She had her hair down, a hairstyle she’d once told Avery she wasn’t that confident in, and she had on a white button down Avery had never seen her in. It showed off the cross necklace around her neck.

Avery lowered the comic. She waited for someone to say something, for one of them to leave, but nobody moved. Bridget looked at the books to her left, but she didn’t make an effort to pick one up. Every other second, she snuck glances up at Avery, waiting for her to make the first move.

Putting away her comic, Avery fixed her bag over her shoulder and walked passed Bridget. She didn’t know where she wanted to go, but her legs brought her to the tall windows showcasing the track field outside. She settled down in one of the library beanbags and didn’t breathe until her heart said it was okay to do so.

Second period of lunch began. Students settled at the computers. The librarian went to fix herself some coffee.

Avery cried silent tears as she watched a flock of geese too stubborn to fly south nip at the snow. When she had to leave for science, she excused herself to the gym bathroom and never returned. She used up an entire roll of toilet paper.

 

──✧──

 

Avery jumped on to the bus the second the doors opened. She had little energy to listen to music and even less so when a boy with no other choices sat beside her. She stared absentmindedly through the frosted windows, watching farms and streams go by. She almost missed her stop, but luckily the boy sitting beside her shuffled his butt and made Avery realize she was staring at her grandparents’ corner store.

She hadn’t called them ahead of time, but she’d spent many afternoons at their store. If her parents wanted to find her, they’d check here, not in the now banned forest.

Her grandfather managed the front counter while her grandmother tidied up the apple counter.

“Oh, speak of the devil,” her grandmother said. “How was school today? Did you get back your exams?”

“Your momma said you were worried about that,” her grandfather added from across the store. “How’d it go?”

“I’m…It was fine,” Avery mumbled. “All good, I think.” She pushed through the barrier to get behind the counters.

“You thinking about manning the store?” her grandfather asked.

“Yeah,” she said, but instead of doing that, she took off her bag near his stool and squatted down. Beneath the counter was a cozy hidey-hole meant for storage or for rambunctious nine-year-olds who got bored at their grandparents’ place.

Her grandfather leaned down. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Avery said, and hid her embarrassed, red face in her knees, balling herself deep into the corner.

“Alright, then. Just making sure.” Chuckling a whistly laugh, he stretched over the counter and snuck a sour gummy worm packet for Avery to nibble on.

Avery snacked on it in her hidey-hole for the rest of the afternoon.


	17. Cameron's Reading

Cameron lay in bed, staring at Avery’s phone, holding their stomach in pain. They would’ve blamed the throbbing on regular cave sickness, but they knew why they felt so awful.

Every time they tried to go to sleep, they saw Avery yelling at them for their misdoings. They’d tried to explain themselves, but it hadn’t been enough, apparently. Nothing would ever be enough.

Their Moeder had promised her return, but it’d been weeks and weeks and not so much as a whisper had broken through the Main Exit Tunnle.

They didn’t understand. Avery knew about their condition—she’d called it “chronic bronchitis”—so she knew they couldn’t dig her out themselves. It took days for them to clear out a few feet of tunnle, and they hadn’t known if Avery had been hurt or trapped or worse. They’d done what they thought was best. And the whole ordeal with the Grandmoeders didn’t help their mood at all. They felt as if tunnle rocks had buried them and nobody had the time to save them yet.

Maybe they should’ve comforted her first, or told her they needed to leave to get her out quicker. Maybe, maybe, maybe. The word plagued Cameron and their spur-of-the-moment decisions.

A burning feeling settled in Cameron’s throat. Choking, they reached for the bucket they’d borrowed from their neighbors and coughed hard into it. Dark phlegm splattered out. They’d hidden their ailments for months now, but they couldn’t do it anymore. They had to face the truth: Their sickness was getting worse, and it was all because of what they’d done to Arkęh:na.

After emptying their stomach, Cameron staggered to their feet and went to their gemme collection. None of them bothered to talk to Cameron anymore. To keep their use benefiting the Community, Cameron, after several weeks of thoughts, decided that they deserved a far better owner than them.

Taking one of their oldest gemme cases, Cameron packed away their most precious gemmes and brought them to Basil and Maywood.

Cameron heard Basil from two tunnles away. Poor Maywood was trying to sew a pair of socks for him while he complained from their bed. The healers had bandaged his ankles, but it didn’t stop him from complaining while bedridden.

When Cameron entered, Basil almost jumped up, but he stopped himself to save his ankle strength. “You’re up.”

Cameron nodded, then looked to his bandaged ankles.

He covered them. “They hurt, but I’ll be fine.”

“He went outside,” Maywood tattled. “He tore his best pair of socks. When he gave me them to fix, I found pine all over it.”

“I was just scavenging,” Basil said.

“With a broken ankle! You need to take better care of yourself. I worry.”

She said the last word while looking at Cameron, but Cameron couldn’t look into her doting eyes for that long.

They opened their gemme box. “None of my gemmes are working for me anymore. I was wondering if you two wanted them.”

“They’re not working?” Maywood asked.

“They haven’t been for months. If you could just take a few off my hands, I’m sure they’ll work for you. They like hardworking, loving people, so they’ll like you and Basil.”

At the sound of Cameron’s drooping voice, Maywood touched their side, comforting them. “Cameron, I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“About Avery, about what our Grandmoeder said to you.”

“It was wrong, what she said,” Basil said. “She’s always had it out for you and me. I’d be hard-pressed to say she likes anything.”

“Don’t be rude to them behind their backs,” Maywood warned.

“I don’t get why they’re important in the first place. They’re just old.”

“Not all of us can live as long as they can,” Cameron explained. “If they were able to live past fifty, they’re important.” They dropped four gemmes in Maywood’s hand. “Use this one for Basil’s legs and these for your Moeder. They used to help with my sadness.”

“…Alright,” Maywood said, “but get better, okay? I’m sure Avery will come back.”

“Sure,” Cameron said, and slogged away.

They travelled around Arkęh:na like a desperate salesperson. Some neighbors took the gemmes, but no one wanted them in the same way no one wanted food with a bite mark in it. Yes, it’d work and you should’ve been grateful, but you’d take nearly anything else if someone offered and usually felt disgusted with the overall exchange.

With nearly the same amount of gemmes they’d started with, Cameron climbed up to Arkęh:na’s first level and rested at the Centrum. They found a pillow filled with welcoming goose feathers and sighed loudly as they melted into it. They should’ve been scavenging, doing the one job expected of them, but no. All they could do was wait for the girl who’d pushed them away and hope she’d take them back the next time they disappointed her.

The faintest smell of spices wafted around the Centrum pillars. Behind Cameron, just next to the Rivière, was the hole leading down to the psychic’s den. The gentle waterfalls created a foam of water that wafted magical herbs throughout Arkęh:na.

Cameron tapped their foot. They swore they saw the air sparkle with energy, but they knew they couldn’t see such magical properties.

Dragging a long, tired hand down their face, Cameron got up and brought their gemmes to the psychic den.

Quilts from past Grandmoeders hung up as makeshift doors that Cameron needed to duck under. They couldn’t dare touch them. Pushing them aside with such hands felt shameful.

Step after step and the air cooled with misty energy. They needed to walk down a cramped tunnle filled the dried asters, sage, and acorns hung up with twine. They warned Cameron to turn back before they regretted it, but they should’ve known Cameron wouldn’t listen to such wisdom.

The end of the hall opened into an antechamber lined with gemmes on high shelves. Barron, the guard who stood watch at the main entrance, looked Cameron up and down with his arms crossed. His head reached the highest shelf. “Your Moeder’s in the middle of a reading. What do you need?”

“I don’t know,” Cameron said honestly. “I wanted to get rid of my gemmes, but nobody seems to want them. I think they brought me here. Do you need any?”

To answer, Barron pulled out their necklace and bracelet, each embellished with purple gemmes. “Sorry.”

Cameron stared at their opened box, wondering what to do next.

“Do you want to schedule a reading?”

Cameron looked back up. Never in their life had they ever thought about getting a reading done willingly. Once they’d been forced to get one when their Fader had left. It’d been a joint-reading with his Moeder, so they hadn’t remembered much. They couldn’t stop staring at their Moeder expressing feelings they hadn’t known she had. She’d cried. She never cried. “Should I?”

“You seem lost, contemplative. I think it’d only be helpful. Some people”—he nodded to where the psychics worked—“come in with much more to talk about looking far better than you do. And a reading is free, it only takes a half hour. And don’t say other people deserve to be seen before you.”

Cameron, who’d just opened their mouth to refute him, closed it.

He rolled the beads of his bracelet around his wrist. “Cameron, your Moeder…”

Before he said whatever he’d wanted to say, someone new entered the antechamber. Moeder Exia, Basil’s and Maywood’s Moeder, came out huffing and fixing her shawl around her bony shoulders. She would’ve slammed the wooden door behind her before a ringed hand lurched out from the darkness and creaked it back open.

“I’ll take them,” Cameron’s Moeder said, and waited for their child in the tunnle doorway.

Cameron hid their box behind their back. Even though they were making eye contact, they didn’t want to come out and ask if she wanted to see _them_ or someone else, maybe Barron, maybe Moeder Exia again.

When their Moeder said nothing, Cameron lowered their head and followed her in without a word.

“Good luck,” Barron whispered.

Their Moeder’s psychic room was built at the very end of the tunnle, making them walk parallel with the waterfall. Seeing it from this new angle, Cameron couldn’t help but stare through the falling water pooling into the bathing pond. The breeze from the falls against the dark, twinkling water lost them in wonder about how many waterfalls lived on the surface.

When they came back from thinking about Autrean life, they saw their Moeder waiting for them by her curtained den.

Cameron had visited here three times in their life. Once on accident, as they didn’t know the consequences for entering without permission, the second when their Fader left, and the third from when they sliced open their skull from their first cave-in, resulting in their facial scar. Their Moeder hadn’t slept for three days as she worked tirelessly on healing her degenerate child.

Her room looked exactly the same as it did those times. Two quilts padded the ground, one for her, one for her client. Skulls and bones of dead animals made up the altars, and candles and incense had been lit to cleanse the area. The scents Cameron had smelled from the Centrum now dizzied them.

Their Moeder motioned for them to sit on the quilt adjacent from hers. Then she took Cameron’s box and examined its contents.

“I wanted to know if any Moeders needed them,” Cameron said.

“Why don’t you want them?”

“I don’t think they work for me anymore.”

“So you don’t think you deserve them?”

“Not anymore.”

Their Moeder closed the box. “Why’re you here?”

Cameron laced their fingers together. “I’m not sure.”

“Have you heard from Avery?”

“No.”

“Has anyone told you about her?”

Their heart thumped too loudly. “What happened to her? Is she sick? Is she okay?”

“She’s fine,” their Moeder said in monotone. “Scavengers have been keeping an eye on her. One returned her backpack to her a few weeks ago.” She took a candle and lit it with another. Then she sat in silence for almost a minute, looking directly at Cameron.

Cameron wished she didn’t prep her sessions like this, but what did they know? They’d only heard of her practices through impressed whispers from the ville.

Their Moeder arched her back. “Close your eyes.”

Cameron did as told.

The scent of the candles and incenses enhanced by double. The waterfall outside grew louder, as if rapping on their Moeder’s curtains for a fortune. Cameron noticed the softness of the quilts beneath them, the echoes off the room, themselves as a simple, breathing person.

“Here.”

Cameron opened their eyes to their Moeder holding out her signature deck. Each card had its own unique drawing and spirituality attached to it. Only skilled Moeders could truly understand their wordless meanings.

Their Moeder fanned out cards in front of them. “Pick three.”

They did. Each time they pulled one out, their Moeder’s eyebrow twitched. Cameron tried to plan out each pick, but they knew their say meant nothing.

Once they had their three cards, their Moeder took them back and placed them in front of her. “This card represents your past,” she explained, pointing to one card, “this one’s your present, and this’s your future.” She picked up the first card and flipped it to face Cameron. “The Fool. A  reckless, selfish being.”

“But I’m not selfish.”

“Selfishness doesn’t come from your actions, it comes from your feelings.” She placed down the card. “You’re getting sicker, and you haven’t told me.”

Cameron tightened their core, but it caused them to cough a cough they’d been trying to hold back. “I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Because you’re selfish. You think that carrying your burdens alone will somehow make it better, because you don’t want your loved ones to worry. That’s why you’re selfish.”

“But—”

“The cards don’t care about what you do,” their Moeder said. “They’re designed to slap you into thinking right.” She picked up the next card. “The World, reversed.”

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” Cameron said, knowing how disastrous reversed cards meant.

Her mother continued. “You’re incomplete. You’re living in a world without trees, without life. You’re stagnating without closure.”

Cameron covered their ears.

“You must listen to them. They know my own child. They only want what’s best.”

Cameron shook their head and curled inwards.

“Your future—”

“Please, stop.”

“The Magician. It can mean willpower, a great passion that’s dictating your actions. I don’t believe this’s the case. I believe you’re heading for disaster, and you’ll be facing a great deal of pain and loss very soon.”

“No.”

“ _Yes_. This’s your future, Cameron. Stop hiding from it. This’s the person you were in your past, this’s who you are now, and this’s who you’ll be in your future. Stop hiding from your problems. Realize that Avery’s gone because of what you did.”

Cameron dropped their hands onto the quilt, the tension gone, restraints broken. Hearing it for the first time spoken so soberly, Cameron’s face scrunched up in anguish, and they cried. They ugly-cried into their hands, facing their Moeder who knew best and who’d always known so.

She crawled over and held them.

“It’s all my fault,” they sobbed. “I’m a terrible Arkęh:nen.”

“You’re neither the worst nor the best. None of us are.”

“But Avery’s gone because of me.”

“She is, and she’ll return.”

“No, she won’t. I know she won’t. Oh, she was so angry with me when she ran away, Moeder. She hates me, I know it.”

“She won’t hate you forever. Forever is something young people like to cling to, but you don’t know what forever means. Avery will forgive you, and you’ll get to apologize to her soon.”

“I hate it, Moeder. I hate this. I miss her so much. I want her back.”

“You’re in love, Cameron. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

At that, Cameron cried even louder.

“It’ll be alright, my love.”

“But my future.”

“Your future can happen at any point. Do not anticipate it. And always expect pain and loss in your life, but always remember your desires. They will push you into being a better version of yourself.”

“But I’m scared.”

“That means you’re still able to learn.”

Cameron relished in their Moeder’s hug for one more minute before pulling away and drying their eyes. When they looked back up at her, she was smiling faintly, but noticeably, and appreciated.

After their reading and another hug, Cameron left the psychic room in higher spirits than when they’d entered. They waved to Barron and Basil’s and Maywood’s Moeder, who was tapping her foot by the falls. Cameron hadn’t realized they’d left without their gemme box until they passed the Centrum, but they didn’t care. While they loved the devotion they put into gemmes, something more important was guiding them now.

Trying to be as slick as possible, Cameron went back to their den and packed a bag. They loaded in beetles and fruits Nuvu hadn’t yet eaten, a sealed container of water, their extra pair of slippers, and a small gemme for guidance. After slipping into their poncho for warmth and slinging their bag onto their back, they then took hold of Avery’s phone. It now radiated with more energy than any of Cameron’s gemmes.

Nuvu chittered at their owner’s unexplained energy.

Cameron pet her underneath her chin. “I’ll be back soon,” they promised. Pocketing Avery’s phone, they parted their curtain and jogged for the Main Exit Tunnle.

They’d seen Avery climb up these steps a dozen times, and scavengers and hunters had no problems with them. Still, they faltered at the Main Exit Tunnle, not knowing what actually lived in the Autre world.

They knew one thing, though: Avery lived somewhere on the surface, and if fate could treat them kindly for once, it would lead them to her.

Coughing into the open air, they took hold of the first rung and started climbing.


	18. The Autre Life

They’d heard about winter’s toll on the surface, but they’d never experienced a cold like this before. No wonder Avery wore so many layers when she came to visit. They hadn’t even touched the surface yet and their teeth were already chattering.

When Cameron pushed the boulder out of the way, they collapsed outside the Main Exit Tunnle panting. Avery made it look so easy, but the rock weighed almost as much as they did.

Acclimating their eyes to the moonlight, Cameron bunched up their poncho stepped outside.

Each dark tree silhouette made its own signature noise, creating a choir to the sky. The wind, much stronger than any tunnle breeze, flicked snowflakes at Cameron’s cheeks as if teasing them. The Moon and the stars brightened the white snow, and shadows stretched down the mountain and created pools of blackness around the bases of trees.

Basil had always gone on about how dark and scary night was on the surface, but Cameron saw nothing but light and shadows. They saw mystery, from the creatures jumping from branch to branch to the moving lights roaring through the sky.

The massiveness of Arkęh:na’s mountain had never crossed Cameron’s mind before. It built itself up from the grass like an ant hill, birthing trees on its incline and housing boulders bigger than Cameron’s own den. Towering oak trees grew around the exit Avery had left from. They must’ve been mourning the fallen oak trapped inside the tunnle.

They expected more houses on the surface, or at least someone wandering by to whom they could say hello. With so much life chirping in the bushes, not a lot of human life lived _in_ the forest, just underneath it.

To check, Cameron looked behind them to see how far they’d gotten.

They couldn’t see the mountain anymore.

Cameron stopped walking. They couldn’t see the mountain anymore. They hadn’t been paying attention to where they’d been walking. Never in the past five years had they gotten lost, and they couldn’t see home anymore.

They kept walking, their left hand now tracing their kaart scars. They’d find Avery soon enough. How many people could live in New York? They’d seen pictures of Avery’s home. Finding a log cabin in the woods would be easy.

They walked up and over a slushy hill and found a path not made of grass, or snow, or earth, but of stone. They almost crossed it before remembering what Basil had told them about crossing “streets.” Remembering his advice, Cameron checked both ways and didn’t see any bear-sized machines that roared at you and shone lights brighter than the Sun, and they didn’t hear anything but the wind or see anything but the Moon.

They walked down its path in small steps, following a faded line painted near the edge. They had yet to see any houses or dens. The thought of Avery travelling so long for Cameron’s sake astounded them.

A low rumbling revved up behind them. They stepped out of the way, thinking it a low cave-in, but two bright, burning lights blinded them with fury.

Cameron screamed. They rolled into a snowbank to keep from getting eaten. Their eyes hurt too much to look at the beast, and they were left to listen to the machine bare its mechanical teeth at them. The wind sliced off its wheels in a snarl, screeching as it drove off. The wicked noise it made as it left sounded too much like like a banshee grieving for her lost child.

Cameron clutched their pounding chest and stumbled off in a new direction. Which way, they didn’t know. They just had to get away from the street so they would never have to see or face that creature again. They swore they saw a pair of human eyes trapped within the contraption, but they didn’t dwell on that nightmare for long.

Ten minutes of jogging and Cameron braced themselves against a tree to wheeze. The air was beginning to ice in their throat, turning their fingers a worrying shade of red. This never happened in Arkęh:na, as it was always kept a modest temperature in even the darkest of tunnles. How did Autreans survive in this weather without dens?

Then they saw it: cabins, or “houses.” Through the trees, peeking out like curious cat eyes, the Autrean homes came out of hiding.

Escaping the thicket, Cameron stumbled onto a wider road they had to cross. This road, unlike the other, had balls of light affixed to branchless trees. Without the cover of the forest, they air here felt significantly cooler, too, and strange sounds echoed in the distant like wolf howls.

Lips pressed, Cameron took out Avery’s phone and shined it in front of them. Things like footprints or breathing wouldn’t be enough to announce your presence here. Autreans needed light to be seen.

So Cameron entered into the town of Foxfield. Its name rang true: It had fields as long as tunnles where foxes or bears could comfortably live. And it smelled like animals, and not in a cooked meat kind of way. Cameron smelled poop and fur and the living spaces of hefty work animals. Wondering what types of critters lived alongside modern humans, Cameron crept up to the red, wooden house surrounded by a wooden fence and stuck their head through a window.

Something as large as a car and equally formidable pressed up against Cameron’s cheek. It sniffed them with teeth, just grazing their skin before they pulled back in shock. The creature had a snout as big as Cameron’s head with eyes as black as a black bear. It didn’t move, but its breathing came from deep in its spotted stomach. It must’ve been alive, and not just a machine meant for Autrean use.

Cameron believed they were called “cows.”

Cameron lowered the phone and slowly backed away, never taking their eyes off the beast. Its pupil-less eyes faded into darkness.

Cameron continued on. Ten houses down that road, six up that hill. Just outside the cow’s house lived hundreds, maybe even thousands of homes down snowy streets. On instinct, they kept tracing their kaart for direction, but they wouldn’t find it. Every house had some element of Avery’s home structure, but they couldn’t find hers anywhere.

They looked down at the phone. Avery had explained that you needed  to press buttons in order to call others. She’d demonstrated it months ago, but the calls never “went through” because they were in a cave. Cameron had nodded like they understood what that meant.

They started pressing buttons.

The screen shut off, reflecting Cameron’s confused face through snowflakes.

Of course. If they didn’t crack the world in half come March of next year, they’d be impressed.

They kept walking, on and on, down these unwinding streets. The snow had molded dirty mountains they needed to keep climbing over. Sometimes the lights atop the branchless trees flickered when they walked beneath them and startled them. Some Autreans even walked past. Usually when two Arkęh:nen walked past one another in tunnles, they’d say “hello” or affectionately touch one another’s hands. The Autreans did neither. Most of them looked Cameron up and down with a look that communicated nothing but distaste.

At the end of one street, Cameron passed a group of people their own age. One of the girls stopped like they recognized Cameron. She looked a little like Avery with her dark hair and dark skin, so Cameron tried explaining that they were looking for a girl named Avery and that they needed to find her house so that they could apologize to her for leaving her behind during a cave-in.

Whatever they must’ve said must’ve sounded more hateful than they’d intended. After Cameron finished, the girl and her group of friends chuckled nervously and walked away, leaving Cameron underneath a flicking light.

Head down, Cameron sped up the closest snowy hill near an empty farm. They passed something that looked like a log cabin, but painted apples with unnerving smiles glared at Cameron and sent them up the mountain.

They sneezed into the open air. How did Avery walk all this way multiple times? How did Basil _enjoy_ this, going out without permission and exploring such unforgiving lands? Arkęh:nen had nothing akin to these hills—their ancestors would’ve put up ladders or rope for easier access. The road Cameron had chosen stretched on for nearly a mile with only a metal railing to hold on to. It burned to the touch.

But then finally, after breathing in the freezing air, after getting coated in ice, Cameron found something. The cabin looked almost identical to the one on Avery’s phone, but the sizing looked wrong. It felt too flamboyant for Avery. Still, they were freezing, tired, and angered at themselves that they’d even left in the first place. If anything, they’d hide beneath this cabin’s many roofs, which, angled in the way they were, seemed to have been built to keep snow from piling up. Autreans had thought of everything except how to walk up and down icy streets during winter.

The house had multiple doors and multiple door-sized windows. Picking one on a whim, Cameron walked up its slipper steps and tried opening it.

It was locked. Why did Autreans lock their doors?

They didn’t know what they’d done wrong, but they’d tripped an alarm from within the house. The door jingled. Dogs barked. They barked and scratched at the door so loudly that Cameron fell to their butt in fright. Two lights turned on, a person asked a few questions, and before Cameron could run away, the door opened.

Avery’s Fader, a tall, black, Fader with glasses and a beard, held back Avery’s two dogs by their collars. He didn’t look angry, but he didn’t look happy. He looked ready to sic Oreo and Pumpkin on Cameron for trespassing. “ _Who…need…you…you?_ ”

Cameron understood half of the Fader’s words. “Avery, I think she lives here. She’s my friend, she—”

The Fader turned around and called out Avery’s name, followed up by a question. While they waited, Cameron stared at the dogs’ wolf-like muzzles. They seemed so much nicer in Arkęh:na. Did they not recognize them when on the surface?

Another dark-skinned Autrean—Avery’s Moeder—looked around the Fader’s broad shoulder, her eyebrow cocked with suspicion.

She made room for her daughter, who plowed through her own Moeder and Fader to see Cameron cowering in the snow at her own front door.

“Cameron?” Avery asked. “What’re you doing here?”


	19. Sleepover

Cameron peeled themselves off the balcony. “ _Avery_ ,” they said, relieved. “ _You’re actually here_.”

Avery didn’t believe that. As soon as she saw them sitting there, she felt half-asleep. She’d dreamed of them leaving Arkęh:na and meeting her parents, but not like this. She hadn’t showered yet. She was wearing a throw-away band t-shirt from sixth grade. She hadn’t prepped her parents to meet someone they’d not only hate but not understand.

Their expressions showed it all: her father, thunderstruck with a nervous laugh as he held open the door; her mother, at a total loss for who this mystery person was.

Cameron hoisted themselves up with the help of the railing. Their skinny legs trembled to support their shivers. “ _I’ve been searching for you for hours. Why do you live so far away_?”

Avery’s parents walked back from Cameron, who entered their home without permission. They kept squinting and rubbing their eyes, which only made them more sensitive and watery. After getting a blurry glimpse of Avery standing there dumbfounded, they went in for a hug.

Avery stepped back. “What’re you doing here? How’d you get here?”

Cameron frowned at the use of English. “I, uh leave, to you.”

“Why? I thought you weren’t allowed to leave if you weren’t a—” She wanted to say “scavenger,” but she didn’t want her parents to question the odd work profession.

“My Moeder say this, I think, in a reading. She say I go to you.” They acknowledged Avery’s parents with a bow. “ _Is this your Moeder and Fader? They look so much like you_.”

“Is this a friend from school?” her father asked, bringing her back into focus.

“Uh, yeah,” she said. “In my science class…and lunch period. They—” She winced. They wouldn’t get it. They wouldn’t get any of this.

Avery chose the gender that would make them the happiest. “This’s Cameron. _She’d_ called me beforehand saying she wanted to come over. I forgot to tell you.”

“But it’s nearly nine-thirty,” her mother said, checking the grandfather clock behind her. “It’s too late.”

“Is she sleeping over?” her father asked, “because she can, but…”

Cameron, lost in a whirlwind of English, took it upon themselves to welcome themselves into Avery’s home. They took in the high, pointed ceiling, the rafters running parallel to the ceiling fans, and the living room fireplace. They ran their hands over the mantle as they warmed themselves by the fire.

Then Cameron pointed upstairs. “Your den?”

“Y-yeah, my _room_ ,” Avery corrected. “Cameron lives…outside,” she explained to her parents. “Her parents love nature, really thrives with growing their own foods and gardens like that. They don’t have floors, either. It’s more like rock.”

“Oh…” her mother said. “I’ve never heard of someone living like that.”

“She lives in the basement of her house. It’s basically a cave.”

“It _is_ a cave,” Cameron said, and Avery prayed that they’d stop talking before they or she got in trouble. For what, she didn’t know, but the threat of danger lurked outside in the snow, watching them through the curtains.

“Have you been to her house before?” Avery’s father asked.

“Not a lot—”

“I didn’t know you went over friends’ houses,” her mother said. “While I don’t support you going over strangers’ houses without me getting in contact with the parents first, I’m happy you’re branching out and making new friends.”

Avery took the sudden positivity in her mother’s tone to push Cameron up the steps. “It looks like they fell, so let me help her—Cameron—get a bath going.”

“Does she need anything about those scrapes?” her father asked.

“They’re fine!” Avery almost shouted, and pushed Cameron into her upstairs bathroom, locking the door behind them.

Cameron shook off Avery’s hand. “ _Why’re you acting so strange_?”

“ _Why’re you_ here? _Why did you come here? What’s wrong_?”

“ _Nothing. I was just worried about you. You never came back. Are you okay_?”

“ _Yes, but…_ ” She gagged at their swollen knees. “ _What happened to you_?”

“ _A machine came close to me, so I ducked into the snow to avoid it. I walked all around the Autre world trying to find your house. My feet hurt_.”

“ _You shouldn’t have left in the first place_ .” She squatted down near the edge of the tub and drew a bath. “ _You can wash up here, but do it quick._ ”

Cameron leaned over her. “ _That’s the thing you explained to me, right? A bathtub_?”

“ _Yeah_.”

“ _Is this yours_?”

“ _Yeah_.” She tested the water’s temperature on her hand.

“ _Avery_?”

“ _Yeah_?”

“ _Do you hate me_?”

She gathered up the shampoos and conditioners on the rim of the tub. “ _No_.”

Cameron shuffled in place. “ _I’m sorry I left you, back in the tunnle. I should’ve stayed. I’d wanted to go back and make sure everyone was okay, but now I know I should’ve waited with you_.”

Avery got up and opened the medicine cabinet to search for nothing in particular. “ _The water should be fine now. Take a bath, wash up. I’ll be outside_.”

Cameron wiggled out of their poncho, revealing their skin-tight bodysuit that hugged every inch of their body.

Avery ran out of the bathroom before she saw anything and sat on the corner of her bed, her hands folded close to her mouth. Had Arkęh:nen always been so open like that, or was Cameron thinking too much into their relationship?

 _Their_ relationship. What did that mean? She’d just run away from them again. It was like they’d reverted back to strangers, falling on top of one another in a dingy cave.

Once Cameron finished bathing, they came out wearing just their poncho and shorts. Their body suit hung off of their arm along with their towel. A layer of dirt had been scrubbed from their skin, and their curly hair now reached past their ears in soaking locks.

“ _You shouldn’t put on the same thing after you shower_ ,” Avery said, “ _but I guess I didn’t leave you with anything to change into_.”

“ _Do you have anything I can wear_?”

“ _I suppose_ .” From her closet, she pulled out a turtleneck and a pair of pajama bottoms. “ _These should be good._ ”

Cameron began undressing at her bedside.

Avery choked and turned around until they were finish. She felt lightheaded with how many ups and downs Cameron was dragging her through.

“ _You’re acting so jumpy. What’s wrong_?”

“ _I didn’t expect an Arkęh:nen at my doorstep tonight, so I’m trying to keep it cool so my parents don’t freak out_.”

After getting properly dressed, Cameron sat down on Avery’s bed. They still wore their necklace of gemmes, which sparkled against the snowy windows. “ _Why did you say that like it’s a bad thing_?”

“ _It’s not_ .” She sighed. “ _You don’t know my parents. I don’t think they’ll like you_.”

“ _I just met them. How do they not like me_?”

“ _Because my parents don’t like strange things. They like order and things they can understand, so I didn’t want them to meet you yet_.”

“ _So does that mean you think I’m strange_?”

“ _To them, yes_.”

Some shuffling downstairs indicated that either Avery’s father had suddenly appeared by the staircase or he’d been sitting on the step since Avery and Cameron headed up. “Avery, how long is your friend staying over again? Is she hungry?”

Avery translated the question to Cameron, but she didn’t receive an answer. Finally looking up at them, she found that they were scowling, curling their lip like they were angry at _her_.

“ _What_?” she asked.

“ _I’m strange_ ?” they asked, defensive. “ _Why would you say that_?”

“ _I didn’t. I said my_ parents _will think you’re strange_.”

“ _But that doesn’t make a difference_.”

“Avery?” her father asked.

“Uh, sure, Dad,” she called down.

Cameron turned to her, making her squirm away. “ _You know I have problems with that. All my life I thought I was weird because I can’t do magic readings like my Moeder can. Why would you reinforce it_?”

“ _I wasn’t—_ ”

“ _But you just did_!”

Avery glanced over the railing to an empty living room. “ _Okay_ ,” she whispered. _“Okay. I’m sorry. I’m not thinking straight right now. I have a lot on my mind.”_

_“About what?”_

_“You wouldn’t understand, and I don’t want to talk about it right now. It’ll just make me sadder.”_

_“But maybe talking about it would—”_

_“Can you please just drop it?”_

That finally got Cameron to quit bringing up something they had no knowledge about. But, as Avery stomped downstairs to grab their dinner, she didn’t know if that made her happy or not.

 

──✧──

 

They shared the rest of last night’s macaroni and cheese in bed and in silence. Avery drank hot chocolate while Cameron figured out how to eat Autrean food. Apparently they’d never eaten cheese before.

“ _It tastes bad_ ,” they’d told her.

“ _Then don’t eat it_.”

As the Moon peeked into Avery’s windows, sleep seeped into her body like a drug. Cameron, however, working on Arkęh:nen time, kept getting up and exploring Avery’s room. Her parents had turned off most of the lights downstairs, likely helping their eyesight. They explored Avery’s wardrobe, made a detailed inspection of the fireplace, and got lost in the bathroom.

Avery didn’t know why she wouldn’t allow herself to enjoy this rare moment with Cameron, but something inside of her told her to keep quiet, to not stir the emotions she’d been suffocating all this time. In the right circumstances, having a sleepover with Cameron would’ve been a dream. Now she couldn’t wait to wake up to an empty bedroom with everything about Arkęh:na behind her.

When the grandfather clock chimed eleven, Avery’s parents left for bed. Finally alone, Avery yawned and covered her lower half with her blankets. “ _I’m going to bed_.”

Cameron, fully awake, jumped into bed with her.

She heard and experienced every shuffle they made. Their wheezy breathing slowed down, they couldn’t find a comfortable spot next to her. They crossed their legs underneath the covers and started kicking their foot, an anxious tick Avery never knew they had.

She didn’t know a lot about them, now that they were sharing a bed. Their anxieties, their insecurities. She had a lot of them, too, some they’d never understand.

But maybe she could make them understand.

She shifted in bed, announcing her restlessness, before saying, “ _Hey, Cameron_?”

They shifted as well, dipping their finger in troubled waters. “ _Yeah_?”

“ _Can I ask you a question_?”

They didn’t answer.

Taking that as a defiant “sure,” Avery worded very carefully, “ _When you were born…were you born a boy or a girl_?”

They didn’t answer again, but they stopped their heavy breathing, too, and their shuffling. Her question had frozen them in their troubled waters.

“ _Because what I’m dealing with, it might be able to be brushed aside if you were born a boy. Autreans look down on girls who kiss girls. It’s horrible, but that’s how it is. So, if you were to have been born a girl, we’d be okay to be together. I wouldn’t feel like such a freak to everyone I talk to. I’d feel_ normal _again, and happy_.”

A full minute passed between them without an answer, without an explanation to Avery’s obtrusive request. She’d never really questioned them in this regard before, but maybe, if she could just grasp on to a thread of normalcy before she sunk…

Cameron sat up, dragging the blanket off of Avery’s head.

If they had been tearing up, they’d wiped away the tears before they glared down at Avery. Their eyes appeared inflamed. “ _If that’s your way of making me appear more ‘normal’ to you or your parents, then I’ve been seeing you in the wrong light_.”

“ _Cameron, I don’t mean—_ ”

“ _I know exactly what you mean_.”

“ _You don’t have to answer if you don’t—_ ”

“ _No, I don’t_ ,” they said. “ _Choosing how I identify is the most important thing I have to my name. It connects me to Arkęh:na, my Moeder, my Grandmoeder, everyone who’s had a hand in raising me into the person I’ve become. And it’s not even that great a person. I mess up constantly and cause everyone to worry. But I’ve been trying, and I thought that’s what you liked about me. But if this’s all you see me as, as a boy or a girl…_ ” They didn’t give her anything else, and slid off of her bed to sit on the ground, away from her.

But Avery knew exactly what it meant. It meant that all the feelings she’d been showering herself with—being unnatural, disgusting, rude—had been true. She didn’t deserve someone like Cameron. She didn’t deserve any of it, because all she was was a girl obsessed with dirty things.

Only a single tear hit her pillow that night, a silent streak that cooled her chin into the midnight hours.


	20. Translation

Cameron thought they’d read Avery right. They’d thought that even though they were covered in dirt, even if they didn’t have magical abilities like their Moeder, she still liked them. Them, for themselves and what they gave to her as a friend.

They’d been wrong.

Although, as they sat on her floor, tracing designs into the “carpet,” they didn’t believe that as much anymore. When they’d yelled at her, they did, but after several hours of waiting for her finally fall asleep, they realized something.

Something was _wrong_ with Avery. She never acted like this in Arkęh:na, so shy and hidden into herself that they could no longer reach her. She’d act that way during their first week of getting to know one another, but something had recently changed.

_“You wouldn’t understand, and I don’t want to talk about it right now. It’ll just make me sadder.”_

Cameron kept rolling that over in their mind. What’d happened to her? Had Bridget done something to her again? Had she gotten into a fight? Had she hurt herself?

Dropping their head on Avery’s soft bed, Cameron listened for that change in her breathing. They had so much left to say to her, but they didn’t want to widen the crevasse forming between them. Did she really care about their gender to the extent of fighting over it, or was it something more?

When the white Moon passed through a cloud, Avery’s room brightened in blueish light. The Moon’s powers illuminated the hidden spots in her room, like the corners between her cabinets and the warm ash that collected in her fireplace. Unaccustomed to the cold air of Autrean life, Cameron shivered and pulled their sweater over their nose.

Down the stairs, Oreo and Pumpkin chuffed and and began scratching at the wood for some type of attention.

Cameron peered through the bars of the railing.

Pumpkin whined and pawed at the first step. Cameron didn’t know if Autrean dogs could walk up steps or if she wasn’t allowed on the second floor, but she seemed determined to see them again.

Cameron blinked twice at her.

She cocked her head and returned double the amount of blinks.

Melting under her pressure, Cameron checked that Avery was still asleep before tiptoeing down the steps.

They met Avery’s Fader’s eyes immediately, like he’d been expecting them to come down. Luckily they had Pumpkin to pet, but having a Fader’s lingering gaze on them made them sweat. They didn’t know how to act around Faders, let alone new people. Avery had been their first.

Avery’s Fader said something to them.

Thinking they heard the word “food,” Cameron just said, “No, thanks,” and walked towards a window showing off the forest. The Fader had too many lights on on his side of the house, but next to the window, nothing but the Moon shone down on the land. The blurry orb of white watched over them through the treetops like an eyeball, forever staring down at them.

Cameron turned away. Basil had told them that it changed shape depending on the day. What a magnificent gemme.

The Fader cornered Cameron into the niche they’d placed themselves in. He stood so tall and had enough authority to almost challenge a Grandmoeder’s intellect. Cameron had just enough time to prepare themselves for their first Autrean conversation.

If he knew they couldn’t understand English, it showed in his manner of speaking. He talked slower than when he talked to Avery. He used his hands, enunciated his words like a Grandmoeder. How much he likely knew showed in his longer, more sophisticated words.

Between the nonsense, Cameron heard, “ _I’m sorry_ ”—Avery said that a lot in English—“ _but do you need anything? I can get things for you. I can get you something to eat, or are you too cold? Do you need any pelts_?”

Cameron was sure he hadn’t said “pelts,” but they felt more comfortable hearing that than “electric blanket.”

“ _I don’t need that_ ,” Cameron said awkwardly. “ _I don’t sleep during your night, and I’m not hungry. I’m fine_.”

They were lies—they were not fine, and they were very hungry—but they didn’t want to push their needs onto Avery’s Fader, who looked more tired than Avery.

Smiling with tight lips, Avery’s Fader said, “Okay,” and almost ran back into the cooking area. If he had a job down in Arkęh:na, he’d be a cook.

But what would Avery’s Moeder be? They hadn’t looked her in the eyes when they’d first met, as one did when introduced to a high-class Moeder. But currently, she busied herself at a “computer,” surrounded by parchment and pens. She looked more focused than a Moeder giving a psychic reading, and it only pulled Cameron into her space. They were curious, curious about how this world worked.

Curious about how two parents worked so close to one another, so close to their own child.

Keeping themselves small, Cameron tiptoed across the creaky floorboards and went to look around Avery’s Moeder’s shoulder. Oreo and Pumpkin backed them up from behind.

Avery’s Moeder side-eyed them, but she said nothing and pretended she hadn’t seen them. Her screen shone so brightly that Cameron had trouble believing she could truly see anything at all. Since entering the Autre world, their eyes had begun to focus, but the text on Avery’s Moeder’s computer was still too intense to look at.

Still, it fascinated Cameron enough that their shoulders were almost touching. Her work, whatever it led to, felt engaging and thorough and smart, just like Avery, and they wondered if Avery knew how to work a computer as well as her Moeder.

When Cameron accidentally coughed, Avery’s Moeder sighed shortly and turned in her seat. “ _Do you need something?_ ”

Oreo and Pumpkin lowered their ears and went back into the living room. Unlike Avery’s Fader, Avery’s Moeder spoke quickly as if Cameron could understand her.

“ _I, uh, don’t know,”_ Cameron said _. “I don’t speak English. It’s bad to talk…without Avery_.”

They didn’t know if that was true, but the more they thought about it, the more it stuck. They knew they couldn’t speak English as well as Avery could speak Arkęh:nen, but they ventured to say more words around her. It didn’t feel embarrassing around her.

Clearly not understanding, Avery’s Moeder put one hand to her mouth in puzzlement, staring deeply into her computer screen. Cameron wondered if she’d been reading up on how to interact with an Arkęh:nen before speaking to one. Then she took out her phone and started typing.

Cameron watched her small fingers type out a hundred words a minute before she made her phone speak to them in a strange voice. It sounded neither Arkęh:nen nor English, so they shrugged their shoulders in confusion.

She cycled through six or seven other languages, each asking a question to Cameron in an odd voice. Each one sounded more foreign than the next, and Cameron went to ask her what she was getting at when one question pushed through the drabble.

“Do you understand this?”

It came from the phone, so Cameron didn’t know who to answer to first: Avery’s Moeder or the phone. Guessing logically, they said to her, “Yeah. How did you do that? How does your phone know Arkęh:nen?”

Getting a result she must’ve wanted, she typed in another line of bright text. Her phone spoke: “It sounds like you speak Dutch, although some. I did not know you did not speak English. I did not know how much about you and Avery. Or your magical religion. I think it’s good, as long as Avery is happy, however. She was worried about how I thought about you and her. Where do you live?”

A small bubble of pride swelled in Cameron’s throat. “I live in a place called Arkęh:na. It’s a Community underneath a mountain that’s interconnected by tunnles and rivers. It’s a beautiful place filled with shimmering gemmes and even more beautiful people. Avery had come down often to hang out with me, but she stopped, which’s why I came out to make sure she was okay.”

The phone somehow translated what Cameron had said, and Avery’s Moeder read it over as if she’d be tested on it later on. Her hand never left her mouth, keeping back her true words. Then she wrote: “I beckoned it. Thank you. Are you hungry or thirsty, or are not you warm enough? Do you need something?”

Somehow, hearing the questions asked in perfectly broken Arkęh:nen was more encouraging than having to answer it in broken English. “I can take some water, if that’s okay, and something small to eat.”

She read the translated line of text, then got up using her cane. Cameron went to help, but she lifted herself up without assistance. No wonder Avery was so strong.

“ _Ethan_ ,” she called out. “ _Can you get the kid some water and some leftover mac and cheese?_ ”

“ _What happened? I’d just asked her if she needed anything.”_

“ _I asked them. It’s okay. And they’re okay. More okay than I thought._ ”

Cameron didn’t know if they should’ve taken that as an insult or not, but they didn’t know if they’d caught everything clearly.

As they waited by the Moeder’s computer, waiting for their cheesy noodles and water, their anxiety dissolved away. They’d somehow survived talking to not only Avery’s Fader but also her Moeder, alone, without Avery’s help. If they had that translator, or if they learned a bit more English, maybe they could talk to more nice Autreans like them.

The Fader put the glass of water and bowl of cheesy noodles next to Cameron.

“ _Thank you_.”

“ _No problem_.”

If they could finally speak Avery’s language, could they save her, unveil the darkness enshrouding her? Could they get her to understand who they were and who she was both inside and outside of Arkęh:na?

Avery’s Moeder returned from the cooking area with a cup of brown, steaming liquid and sat down in front of her computer.

Cameron ate a biteful of cheesy noodles. It still tasted bad, but they were getting used to the taste. “Avery’s Moeder?”

She pulled out her phone, pressed something, and held it out across the table.

“Something’s wrong with Avery and I don’t know what it is. She’s been getting upset with me, but when I ask what’s wrong, she won’t say. She says that talking about it would just make her sadder. Do you know what’s making her so sad?”

She read over Cameron’s translated words. Then she typed. “I do.”

“What is it?”

“I cannot say.”

“Why?”

She typed for a few minutes, backspacing her thoughts to clear up her meaning. “I do not want to tell you if she has not told you. It’s a secret she does not think I know. It hurts her, until she asks for help. And, if you know my daughter, she does not do that easily.”

Cameron felt like they were talking to their Moeder through her cards. “Can you tell me the secret is, at least, so I can better help her?”

“No, but I hope she tells you quickly. You are one of the few people who can help her.”

Cameron let that settle over them until the steam from Avery’s Moeder’s drink disappeared. What did they have for Avery that could save her?

They ate the rest of their cheesy noodles thinking it over, then bowed to Avery’s Moeder as a thank you and climbed back up the steps, a little fuller, and a whole lot more lost with Autre culture than ever. They felt so drained that they crawled back into Avery’s bed, their thoughts still catching on Avery’s Moeder warning.

The way Avery breathed suggested that she’d woken up, but Cameron didn’t ask. Like her Moeder had said, she seldom asked for help. She’d rather entangle herself in her thoughts until she tripped over them and got hurt.

Tired yet not sleepy, Cameron closed their eyes to think. Their thoughts never left the girl pretending to sleep beside them.


	21. Apology

That morning, Avery’s father woke up early to make breakfast. The smell of greasy bacon sinking in maple syrup woke Avery up at about five, but when she turned to her side, Cameron was gone.

Fearful that they’d left back to Arkęh:na in the middle of the night, she jumped out of bed half-awake and searched her room, the bathroom, even the fireplace. Then she looked over the railing. The first floor looked empty with just her father in the kitchen.

Groaning, Avery ran down the steps and almost tripped over Pumpkin. “Dad, where’s Cameron? Did they leave? Have you seen them?”

“She’s sitting over there,” her father said, and pointed towards the fireplace with his spatula.

Curled against the hearth, Cameron ate a plate of eggs and toast by themselves. Both Oreo and Pumpkin sat on their feet for warmth. Cameron kept sneaking them pieces of egg, never once looking at Avery.

“She told me she lives in the woods,” Avery’s father explained as he handed Avery her plate. “I asked if she wanted a ride home, but she said she wanted to wait for you to wake up.”

Avery looked over to them to see how much of that checked out.

They still weren’t looking at them. Sleep in the corner of their eyes weighed down their eyelids. Their head kept bobbing, sleep almost in reach.

Avery took their recluse seriously and ate at the kitchen island by herself. Memories of what she’d so boldly asked of them hit her like slow-motion bullets, each one piercing her more slowly than the next. She regretted everything she’d said and all the ways she’d acted. Their first sleepover should’ve been filled with movie watching and explaining what a movie was and making a movie on her phone and then reacting to it in embarrassed laughing. Eating terrible food, making terrible jokes, cuddling, kissing…

And what had she done? Accused them, belittled them, forced them to tell her what was in their pants when clearly that never once mattered to her until now. Her self-hatred now likely equaled how much Cameron hated her.

Her father leaned over the counter. “Everything okay?”

She nodded without answering, which told him everything.

“If you want, I can drive her back home. I overheard what went down last night. I mean, I didn’t understand any of it. When did you learn how to speak Dutch?”

“Dutch?”

“That’s what your mother said. She said it sounds like Dutch.”

Avery split open her egg. “I never knew. It comes easily to me.”

“Maybe you can take a class of it in school. Cameron seems to understand you perfectly.”

“I doubt that,” she said.

Cameron coughed into a wheeze over their meal. Oreo picked up his head and sniffed, then jumped back when Cameron started hacking out their lungs.

“I think they should leave now,” Avery agreed.

“Okay. Let me get on my boots and clean the kitchen,” her father said.

“No, it’s okay. It’ll be quicker if we walk.”

“Shouldn’t you leave a little later when it warms up?”

Avery checked how much time she had left until the Sun rose. “No, she should leave now. Cameron.”

Dizzy on their feet, Cameron stood up immediately, their plate half-finished.

She gave them one of her old jackets to wear along with a pair of boots that barely fit. Cameron didn’t complain. They hadn’t even said good morning to her, but she didn’t blame them. She hadn’t said it, either.

“Are you sure?” Avery’s father asked as they left. “There’s a storm coming down from Michigan. Should be here by tomorrow.”

Avery let go a little smile. “I’m sure I’ll be back by tomorrow.”

“Well, with how much you spend in that forest…” her father said, and waved them out.

The snow had stopped sometime last night, but a layer of white still coated the driveway. The wind had also waned and left the echo of Avery’s and Cameron’s synchronized bootsteps, the world’s only sound.

Avery led the way. All of her favorite trees and boulders had iced over. Gone was the chatter of birds and cicadas. She saw a few squirrels struggling to live through three inches of snow, but they scattered whenever Cameron coughed.

After their last wheeze sent them into a coughing fit, Avery asked, “ _Are you okay_?”

“ _I don’t know. How long does it take to get to Arkęh:na_?”

“ _It’s about ten minutes away.”_

Cameron panted into their turtleneck. “ _I went that way_ ,” they said, pointing right, down to the farmlands. “ _I didn’t know where you lived. I must’ve circled the whole town searching for you_.”

“ _I’m sorry_.”

“ _It’s not your fault_.”

When the mouth of Arkęh:na came into view, Cameron walked past Avery to hide in its embrace. The Sun had started peeking through the pine trees, dyeing the snow a burnt orange. Cameron reacted like a vampire when it struck their side and must’ve felt solace in its natural darkness.

“ _You can keep the shoes and coat_ ,” Avery said, “ _though you’ll probably give it to your neighbors_.”

Cameron cast a look into the cave, focusing on the rock separating them from their true home.

“ _Cameron_.”

They finally turned back to her.

Avery forced herself not to look away. “ _I’m sorry about what I asked last night. I know your identity is important to you, and I don’t have a right to know it if you don’t want to tell me. And I’m sorry for how I acted. I was being a jerk and you didn’t deserve it_.”

Even though the Sun was moments away from hitting their cheeks, Cameron stepped out of the cave.

“ _I’m sorry_ ,” Avery repeated, trying to match the words in her mouth with the words in her heart. " _I’m sorry I hurt you_.”

Avery had memorized the rocks leading up to Arkęh:na, but Cameron hadn’t. They stumbled on loose footing as they jogged back to her and threw themselves into her arms.

Fearful of them falling, Avery held them back.

“ _I was scared_ ,” they said into her chest. “ _You weren’t yourself. I thought something bad happened_.”

Avery dropped her head against the top of Cameron’s. “ _I’m sorry_.”

“ _Can you tell me what’s wrong? Why’re you so sad_ ? _What can I do to help_?”

She shivered at the thought of saying it out loud. Saying it aloud outside of Arkęh:na made it true, and she didn’t think herself strong enough to fight the fear it instilled in her. “ _I don’t feel good about myself and I don’t want you getting attached to someone like me right now_.”

“ _Why don’t you like yourself_?”

“ _I don’t know, but I hope…_ ” She corrected herself. “ _I’ll get better soon, then I’ll come back, back to Arkęh:na, back to my normal self_.”

“ _Please come back soon. I want to be with you again_.” They looked up to her with their small size, lifted themselves upwards, and kissed her cheek.

She let them in, softly. “ _Thank you_.”

“ _Thank you for apologizing_.” Hacking into their hand, they patted her arm with reassurance that she’d come back and left for home.

Even though they couldn’t see her, Avery waved until the rock fell back into place and Cameron disappeared underground.

Just before leaving herself, she noticed a wet spot on her jacket.

A bloody, mucus-covered handprint stained the white of her coat, dripping down the seams like fragile icicles.


	22. Queer

With midterms behind her and a promising three-day weekend on the horizon, Avery’s emotional load lightened. She still hadn’t visited Cameron and didn’t know if she’d wait until the snow melted to see them again or not. Her parents hadn’t brought up hiking since Cameron left, but she didn’t want to stir the waters. She’d done so much to steady them, to feign a sense of normalcy in their household.

She wasted the last few minutes of class wandering the halls. The buses had just pulled into the driveway and kids were slowly gathering their belongings in their classrooms. Not too afraid of missing the last ten minutes of Spanish class, Avery sat on the foyer staircase and watched the clock until the final bell rang. Cameron was probably waking up right now, but after their sleepover, she wouldn’t have blamed them for sleeping in. She knew she hadn’t slept well even after she’d apologized.

She made herself small on her step as students ran down the stairs or stood and mingled with their friends. She watched the girls’ and boys’ basketball team line at the front doors to leave for a game, then caught herself staring and got up before anyone noticed.

She tried finding company with their school’s fish tank. The small tank of koi stood in the cafeteria hall next to the truant officer’s room and the cursed bathrooms. Cursed because someone had allegedly fought a tenth grader in one of the stalls and punctured one of their lungs with a protractor. Avery didn’t believe the rumor, but its unsavory past kept her and most students away.

As she traced her fingers down the tank, however, the curse had been broken. Someone left the girls’ bathroom carrying far too many books in their hands, about to spill everything at Avery’s feet.

Bridget collected herself, spotted Avery by the fish tank, then proceeded to walk towards the main hall as if to catch the bus. Then she second-guessed herself, admired her workload, and backtracked to Avery. “Are you catching a bus?”

Avery fixed her hair around her beanie-less head. “My mom’s picking me up.”

“Oh, right.” She restacked her books using the edge of the fish tank. Some of the fatter fish watched her while others hid behind Avery, wondering why a freshman did so much for so little.

“I was, uh, wondering something,” she said, now somewhat more collected. “Do you think you’d be interested in giving an interview for the school paper?”

“You got into the program?” Avery asked, knowing full well she’d not only gotten into the newspaper club but had more creative control than the teacher who ran it.

“Yeah. This month’s theme is reinvention, fresh starts for the new year. We wanted to get it out by early January, but…” She looked at the fish tank rather than the person standing in front of it. “We’ve been getting small stories, but I think your story might, uh, make people want to read.”

“What story?”

She almost turned away from her completely. “I didn’t tell anybody about you. I know you’re not supposed to do that. I know you’re not ‘out’ yet.”

They were in a secluded part of school, but still, they were _out_ in the open, speaking about “it _” out_ of Avery’s brain. That one little word, it didn’t matter what you did or what you wanted to be. It latched onto you and overtook you and everyone you met until the day you died.

She gripped the straps on her backpack.

“We—well, I didn’t, Henry did—got a story from Jacob, the boy in our grade who’s in theater. We got a good story from him from when he came out last year.”

She searched for an adult, someone to save her.

“It’d make a great piece, having a girl’s voice on the topic.”

She fumbled out her tangled headphones and turned away.

“Avery?”

For so long she’d wished to get back on speaking terms with her friend, and now she wished for everything but. When she returned home, she’d mute her on her computer, delete her number, switch schools. Anything to get away from this conversation she’d never be ready for.

“Uh, hello?”

Her phone vibrated in her hand. Inbetwixt the yellow buses revved her mother’s car.

Avery bolted. Not saying goodbye, she passed between groups of students and ran for the nearest doors. She didn’t want to talk about it. Not now. Not ever. Embarrassed, she felt like she was being peeled apart by hands she wished to caress. She wanted to feel whole for just a little longer, to hold herself together before she became undone like a knitted doll.

Bridget pulled on Avery’s sweater sleeve. “I thought you were, you know, _queer_ ,” she whispered, whispered like a dirty secret, something that shouldn’t have been uttered within these halls. “Aren’t you?”

Avery had been untangling her headphones, trying to silence Bridget and her biased words, but she stopped. Her headphones ticked on the ground and spun in the circles until they tangled together as one, unable to stay apart for too long.

With a vacant expression, she picked up her earbuds and rolled them up around her phone. She’d heard that word before. On forums, trying to find what word she clung to most. At first, she didn’t understand its usage. Terrible people used it as an insult. But as she read through dozens of other people’s discussions about why their hearts fluttered so, her eyes always lingered on that strange word.

“That’s me,” she said with slow realization. “That’s me.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m queer. That’s me.” She laughed through her nerves. “That’s me! That’s me, and that’s okay!”

“Are you giving the interview now, because if you are, I can record you—”

Avery dashed through the doors and jogged to meet her mother. Adrenaline hopped into the car and threw down her backpack so fast her drawstring got sandwiched between the door and her feet clicked together like cymbals.

“Hi?” her mother asked. “How was your day?”

Avery gave it a heartbeat of thought. She didn’t have to tell her. It was nobody’s business but hers, but her mother, someone she admired so passionately, she should’ve known. Even if it cost them their friendship. Even if Avery had to live with her grandparents underneath their cash register. It had to be done, because she wanted it to be done, and it had to be now, otherwise she’d never summon up the courage again.

Her mother pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road, taking Avery’s silence as her answer.

She took a swig from her water bottle to wet her mouth. “Mom?”

Her mother didn’t take her eyes off the road. “Yeah?”

“I’m queer.”

Her mother said nothing. She continued driving on. She itched her nose, an itch that didn’t seem to go away. Then she gripped the steering wheel two or three times before she rested in one spot.

Avery’s body slowly freezed over with regret. Her heart sped up to an uncomfortable level, waiting, waiting. She hadn’t planned on saying anything else. She just wanted a reaction, anything to end the silence that’d formed between them.

Then her mother said, “Okay.”

“Okay?” she repeated. “What do you mean? What do you think?”

“What do you mean, ‘what do I mean’? I mean it’s okay.”

Avery’s brain skipped on its tracks. “Huh?”

“Do you not want me to be okay with it?”

“No, but I thought…”

“Do you think I’d hate my child for something she couldn’t control? I can be wary of her exploring caves and befriending strangers who believe in magic and don’t speak English, but this? This’s the least I could ask for.” She turned down a hill. “I was wondering when you’d tell me.”

“How long did you know?”

“For a while. I remember one day in third grade, you told me you wanted to marry those two twins with the red, curly hair. One was a boy and one was a girl. Is it just girls you’re into?”

“I’m not really sure.”

“Okay.” Stopping at a long red light, Avery’s mother rubbed her daughter’s leg. “I was worried for a while. You lost your smile, ever since you stopped talking to Bridget. I’m guessing she had something to do with this?”

“A bit.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Want me to tell your father?”

Avery’s brain locked into place, the gears finally turning. “Yeah. Can I, uhm, maybe go out into the forests so you can talk in private?”

She went to answer too soon, so Avery stammered out, “I-I’ve just been having a rough month trying to figure out a way to tell you guys, and midterms were really hard.”

“You could’ve told me that.”

“I couldn’t find the strength to. Can I, please? Just for an hour?”

“You know, you say that every time, but you stay out there for at least four, sometimes five hours.”

“I’ll be back before dark.”

“It gets dark at five. It’s three.”

“ _Please_.”

“Why? Is it because of that boy, or girl, or person, you invited over the house last week? What was their name, Cameron?”

Avery’s face flushed.

“I guessed as much.” She smiled. “Be home soon, okay?”

Avery nodded, thought it was more to keep herself from sobbing over her mother’s pristine car’s interior. She held herself back with her hand pressed tight over her lips, keeping back a smile ready to burst from her cheeks.

 

──✧──

 

Had it not been for the hidden black ice and fallen leaves, Avery would’ve run the whole way to Cameron’s place. She had a time limit to make now, but she knew her mother would be worrying the second she left her side.

She reached Arkęh:na in record time and slipped through entrance without hesitation. She was so used to seeing Cameron beneath her to greet her. They were probably still sleeping, and she’d be their morning wake-up call as they’d been for her.

Arkęh:na was as alive as she’d left it. The ville bustled with patrons and talk and, judging by the scampering of tiny feet, school had just opened for the day. A few artisans smiled and waved at her at her return, which she returned with gusto, but some covered their mouths and whispered Cameron’s name between their fingers. She paid those people no mind.

She parted through the ville with a bright smile not because she’d crawled back underground, but because she’d finally lifted the cover off of herself. Her steps became more lighthearted. She didn’t fear where she’d step next.

There seemed to be more people down Cameron’s tunnle. They kept whispering and running down the hall as if they’d forgotten something crucial. Some slowed down to gawk at Avery, but continued on as if they hadn’t seen her.

Avery’s adrenaline and anxiety did dances in her stomach as she slowed down to Cameron’s room. Strangers of every age group craned their necks too see around closed curtains. Others sat on the other side of the curved tunnle, rocking and covering their mouths like all the other Arkęh:nen were doing.

“ _What’s going on_?” Avery asked them.

“ _Cameron—_ ”

“ _They said they had an attack—_ ”

“ _—and stopped breathing—_ ”

“ _But only for a moment, just a moment._ ”

“ _The Moeders have them now._ ”

Coughing broke through the curtains. A panic. Shuffling. “ _Keep their head straight!_ ” someone shouted.

Avery pushed through the crowd and hooked a finger around the curtain.

Cameron was lying on the ground of their den, naked and sweating. Three Moeder sat around them with gemme bracelets snaked around their fingers. Someone had lit two branches on fire and infested the room with arboreal smoke.

Cameron’s Moeder sat right by Cameron’s head. She held one of the branches and was funneling the fumes into their nose to breathe. It didn’t stop them from coughing up heavy, brown mucus.

A hand pulled Avery back and dragged her back into the tunnle with everyone else. She fought her way back inside, her body moving on its own, but then another hand much stronger than the first firmly yanked her out.

She turned to Basil and Maywood with their hands still on her. Their eyes were bloodshot from crying.

“ _What happened to them?_ ” Avery demanded.

“ _They’re having trouble breathing,_ ” Maywood said. “ _We aren’t allowed inside when the Moeders are working._ ”

“ _But they need a doctor. They need to go to the hospital!_ ”

“ _This happens about once a year. It’s okay. The Meoders know what they’re doing._ ”

“ _But still—_ ”

“ _Come with us,_ ” Basil said, still hobbling on his hurt ankle. “ _You can wait_ __with_ us until it’s over._ ”


	23. Stuffy

_Before their Fader abandoned them, Cameron had chosen their new lifestyle. Their “they,” their revitalized way the Community would see them. They’d thought about telling their parents before school, but they’d already left for work, their Moeder in the psychic den, their Fader manning the canals and transporting precious resources across Arkęh:na._

_So, after school, Cameron, Basil, and Maywood all left the schoolyard knowing Cameron’s chosen identity. Maywood no longer needed to attend school, and Basil made sure that she knew._

_“I’m almost thirteen!” he argued. “You don’t have keep walking me home. I know all the lines on my_ kaart _by heart.”_

_“Then both of us don’t have to worry about getting lost, right, Cameron?”_

_Cameron stuck their tongue at her as they walked through the ville towards the stairs._

_“Your new word is a little confusing,” Basil said, catching up with them. “Are you sure you don’t wanna be a girl anymore?”_

_“It’s not like that,” Cameron said. “I just want my actions to always be influenced by the Community. My teacher said it’ll keep me modest, whatever that means.”_

_“It means you won’t think too highly of yourself anymore,” Maywood said, “but that worries me a bit. You should think of yourself as important.”_

_“I_ am _important, important to the Community.”_

_Basil gave them a skeptical look, then sighed and tossed his head back. “Fine, just don’t get mad if I call you by the wrong thing. It’ll take some time for me to adjust to it.”_

_“That goes for me as well,” Maywood said, “but I still like it.”_

_“Thank you. I like it, too.”_

_When the time came, Basil and Maywood waved Cameron goodbye and diverted down the tunnle towards their own den. Alone, Cameron burst into a grin and jogged home, their school bag thumping against them like a dog’s tail. Their Moeder might’ve not been home, but they knew their Fader would be. Sometimes after work he’d bring them fresh water or a new gemme for Cameron that they’d found in the Rivière. Those moments carried on with them even after he’d left._

_When they got home, they found both their Moeder and Fader waiting for them in their den. Cameron went to rush them with hugs and the good news, but the air within the den deterred them. Taken aback by an ominous feeling, they stepped through the curtain and held themselves close._

_Their parents weren’t looking at one another. Their Moeder had a hand over her eyes as if lost in thought. Their Fader had both hands over his face in some type of shame. What did their Fader have to be ashamed of?_

_Cameron gulped. They wanted to both ask what was wrong and say nothing at all. For the first time in their young life, they were scared of talking to their parents._

_Their Moeder sat up. “Tell her. Tell her right now.”_

_“Tell me what?” Cameron asked, already unsure of responding to the pronoun usage._

_Their Fader sat up as if weighed down by sins Cameron couldn’t possibly imagine him having. “Cameron…”_

_Sensing that he didn’t know how to start, Cameron tried easing him into conversation. “Um, today at school I learned how some ancestors used to call each other “they” in terms of them thinking they’re part of the Community. I really liked that, so I asked my class if they could call me that from now on. Instead of ‘she’, you can start calling me by ‘they’. Isn’t that cool?”_

_The thought passed between their parents like choppy waters, hitting them hard enough to knock them over._

_“Is that so?” their Moeder asked._

_“That’s…great,” their Fader said. “I’m really happy to hear that.”_

_Their Moeder shot him a look, then placed a hand on Cameron’s shoulder. “Cameron, your Fader, he decided that…”_

_“You shouldn't tell her—them—so suddenly.”_

_“And when’s the right time to tell them?” their Moeder snapped. “How selfish can you be right now?”_

_“What’s going on?” Cameron asked. “Why're you two fighting?”_

_Their Moeder sighed through the storm building inside of her. Her voice wavered, emotion clogging her throat and nose. “Your Fader’s decided that he’d rather live away from us. He’s leaving for the surface tomorrow morning and never coming back.”_

_Their Fader became rigid. “Why would you say it like that?”_

_“Because I’m telling them the truth.”_

_“But it’s not the truth. It’s not that I’d rather live away from you. I love you, Ellinor, and I love Cameron just as much. I just can’t keep living like this knowing what’s out there.” He looked above him almost longingly, as if looking past all the rock and dirt and soil that made up Arkęh:na. “I have to see it for myself. I can’t live down here anymore.”_

_Cameron tried to see what their Fader was seeing, but all they saw was their den’s roof, the den that’d protected them for generations._

_They reached out for him. They couldn’t say goodbye. They’d just discovered such a big part of themselves, they should’ve shared this experience with him for years to come._

_Their Fader, already packed, already turning away, left their den without another goodbye. Cameron kept trying, pleading, screaming for him to come back, but they lost their voice. Their throat burned with thick air as their Moeder wrapped their arms around their naked body. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “You’re alright.”_

_“But I’m not,” they wanted to shout. “I’m not okay. We’re not okay,” but their Moeder kept squeezing until her hands and arms materialized through their breaking body._

 

___

 

They came to slowly, not fully aware they were asleep at all. They felt knocked out by a boulder to the head, and awoke with a horrible headache and shaky eyesight. Then they smelled a high concentration of cedar and flowers that watered their eyes, making it even harder to see. Had they gone to see Avery and collapsed in the forest? Had they travelled into the afterlife, death finally taking them? Their throat and chest hurt enough to assume so, but they took in a few breaths to prove themselves wrong.

When they finally had the strength to open their eyes, they awoke in their bed. Three plump blankets encompassed them in so much warmth they were sweating. Someone had lit three candles around the sides of their bed as if they needed light to sleep. It did provide a scent of timber throughout their home, but they didn’t want to seem too indulgent to their neighbors.

They sat up, their head weighing them down. They felt a cough building in their stomach, so they got it out in two, three powerful coughs that drained away the rest of their energy.

Avery, sitting in the corner of the room, awoke with a start, snorting back the collected spit in her mouth. She sat beside their Moeder, who sat cross-legged and was flicking through her tarot card deck. It looked like she was doing a reading to herself with her cards splayed out before her, but she shuffled them together after seeing Cameron vertical.

Avery scrambled towards them on her hands and knees. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” they said, still caught in a daze. “When did you get here? Moeder, what time is it?”

“About eight-thirty at night in Avery’s time.”

At the mention of the time, Avery yawned.

“Why’re you here so late? Won’t your Moeder get upset?”

“I went back to home and told her I was sleeping over your house. She wanted to argue, but I told her you’d gotten into an accident and that I wanted to be here when you woke up.”

“I got into an accident?” They riffled through their memories, but all they could remember was their Fader turning their back on them. They hadn’t even seen his face. It was a blur, lost just like the past several hours. “What happened?”

“Noel said she heard you wheezing strangely, then came in to find you clutching your chest,” their Moeder explained.

Noel was one of their neighbors who lived with her wife and two kids. “I don’t even remember seeing her.”

“She said you weren't breathing and couldn’t speak. You were coughing up blood and only got worse when she tried lying you down. She didn’t know what to do, so she ran to get us. Me, Yuna, and Willow cleansed your body with smoke and fire.”

“Which you shouldn’t have done,” Avery interrupted.

Their Moeder continued as if she hadn't heard her. “You ended up passing out after we calmed you down. Avery and I have been waiting for you to wake up.”

“Moeder Ellinor.” Avery straightened her shoulders, meeting her eyes. Had she ever done that before? Had she done that with anyone before? “I know you said you didn’t want to hear this—”

“And I still don’t.” Their Moeder reached for Cameron’s cheek. They gave it to her, shocked at her level of intimacy, but they couldn't help but keep their attention drawn to Avery’s hard gaze.

“But I think you have to hear this. You aren’t supposed to inhale that type of smoke if you’re trying to clear out your lungs. We have something on the surface called an inhaler than can help open up their lungs—”

“They don’t need that. What we provide for them is enough.”

Exasperated, Avery said, “But it’s not. They’re getting sicker. You said so yourself.”

Cameron pulled back from their Moeder’s hand and properly see Avery. They’d never heard this side of her before, so standoffish. No, so purposeful. They’d never thought anyone could have problems with their Moeder, but the voice coming out of Avery sounded beyond annoyed.

Avery stood up and over Moeder Ellinor. Sensing the challenge, their Moeder did the same. They almost stood as equals, both in height and in the fierceness in their eyes. “Cameron is not safe here anymore. I didn’t want to believe it and looked away for a long time because I didn’t think it was right for me to stick my nose into the business of a culture I wasn’t brought up in. But their sickness is a direct result of them—of _all_ of you—living in Arkęh:na. Arkęh:na is killing you, and you won’t survive its tunnles or its atmosphere much longer.”

Their Moeder scoffed. “I was thinking this sudden defence was a result of my child’s sickness. I was willing to overlook this rudeness in your tone and the remarks you’ve been making about our world, but I’m shocked at how willing you are to keep this up.”

Cameron knew Avery wasn’t familiar with a lot of those larger Arkęh:nen words, but she didn’t waver. Maybe she’d taught herself the words to stay on par with their Moeder. “I’m not trying to be rude. I’m giving you the truth and the facts that living here is not healthy and that it will hurt you more than help you.”

Their Moeder began turning away, but Avery stepped in front of her, blocking her from the curtain. “Please. I know Arkęh:na means a lot to you. Your culture, your ways of living, your card reading, all of it is valid and fair and works for you.”

“Then leave—”

“But I can’t _not_ speak up about the way this’s hurting them. I love what Cameron and I have together. I love them.”

Cameron inhaled. She’d never said the words out loud before.

“So you need to take this into consideration. If you want Cameron to live past thirty, even twenty, you need to think about finding a different place to live. You don’t even have to leave the mountains. You can live in the forest.” She licked her lips, knowing it was a lie. Cameron couldn’t believe they could peacefully live in the forest without an Autrean finding them. “Please, just think it over. Think about your child. Think about your future.”

Their Moeder withdrew the anger in their eyes, falling back into her composed self. “We’re done talking about this.”

“No—”

“We’re done,” she said, and shoved the curtain aside. “Maywood and Basil asked me to get them once you awoke. I'll be right back.”

Cameron heard her stomping feet all the way down the tunnle, her anger still at the surface, unable to be fully buried.

“What happened between you two?” Cameron asked.

Avery threw up her hands. “I’m trying to convince myself that I can talk to a brick wall. I’ll get through to her, though. I have to.” As she spoke, she wiggled down into Cameron’s bed, getting the closest to them as she’d ever been.

Cameron scooted back. “What’s wrong?”

She pushed back the hair from her eyes. She wasn’t wearing her beanie. “Your sickness isn’t contagious.”

“It’s not.”

“Good,” she said, and kissed them.

Fate must’ve really hated Cameron. With everything they had to live with, it had to be now, of course, that Avery felt the most comfortable with kisses. Fate just worked out like that, it seemed, always slapping you with cruelties only to sprinkle the wound with momentary gaiety.

Cameron fell back, bringing Avery forwards. She had so much more vigor, nothing like the other times they’d kissed. She wanted this more than anything. She was hungry.

When she pulled back, she smiled. She even licked her lips.

“You…you said you didn’t like this,” Cameron panted, trying to catch back some breath.

“I’m okay with it now,” she confessed. “I’m not afraid of it anymore.”

Cameron breathed a few more times to get themselves back to normal, then kissed her back with all of their remaining strength.

In a dizziness they couldn’t control, a thought passed through them. Maybe, if they had Avery and their Moeder, if they had everything and everyone who filled in the Arkęh:nen tunnles, maybe they _could_ relocate to a new home to “get better.” They felt bad and sort of silly knowing it was impossible, but still, with every kiss they shared, the possibility grew and grew into something almost real.

  



	24. Out of Your Comfort Zone

Cameron’s kisses could only quiet Avery for so long.

“ _Cameron, you can’t live your whole life in these caves. Look at what it’s doing to your body_.”

“ _I’m fine. This passes_.”

“ _You puked three times last night_!”

“ _That’s normal_!”

Thus went the next two weeks. Cameron did get a little better—they stopped fainting whenever they stood up—but it didn’t make Avery feel any better. The more she visited Arkęh:na, the more she realized how sick these people lived. Their knees, bow legged. Their eyes, yellowed. Their skin, paper-thin. She’d been so impressed by Arkęh:na’s stature that she hadn’t noticed how deteriorated their bodies had become. And Cameron didn’t think it was a big deal.

After passive aggressively fighting with them on the matter, Avery left Arkęh:na to walk off her fumes. Since she found out about  their escalating sickness, she’d typed up a thousand-word document on her phone, listing out every illness, mutation, and disease she spotted. Pores on their faces, rashes that didn’t make sense, bloated joints on young children’s hands. Question marks surrounded each new bullet point.

Back at home, Avery kicked her feet like an impatient dog, moaning. How could she, some thirteen-year-old who feared school more than bears, kick three hundred people out of a home they and their ancestors had built up since the 1600s?

“They’re doing a disservice to their ancestors if they died in a crumbling hole,” she murmured into Pumpkin’s fur. She was on her bed, kicking her feet towards the ceiling. She grabbed her pen to write that down, but her thoughts turned to jelly before she touched her paper. Stuffing her mouth with sour gummy worms, she scribbled out the sentence she'd been working on and grumbled more at Pumpkin. “What if we build them cave-like houses? It can be close to the forest, too, just ventilated and clean.”

Pumpkin licked her face.

“Avery,” her mother called from downstairs. “Dinner’s ready. Bring down the dogs and feed them.”

Avery hid her laptop underneath her pillow and trotted down the steps with two hungry pups on her feet. She didn’t know why she kept Cameron hidden from her parents even after she came out to them. The last secret she had to tell them and she hid it under her pillow like a baby tooth. She’d written out what she’d planned on telling them just like her coming out, but similarly, she’d abandoned everything to let her heart speak for itself.

But she still feared what they’d say. Her crush lived in an ancient underground world, a world that was decomposing and rotting away its witchy inhabitants. They wouldn’t believe her, but her need for hiking through caves would be banned permanently. She couldn’t let that happen, but she couldn’t let Cameron’s health worsen if she could do something to stop it.

Both her mother and father were home that evening. Her father had just kicked off his work boots for the day and was booting up his computer to continue on working. Her mother, like always, had her favorite seat at the end of the kitchen table, two computers open, her phone charging at one hundred percent by her mouse.

“Make your plate,” her mother told her. “I’m hitting a deadline for a paper. Turns out my editor decided to go to Martha’s Vineyard for the weekend and not answer her emails. Now I’m scrambling to reach her for this edit on the abandoned warehouses in Manhattan.”

“I’m sure it’ll turn out fine,” her father said.

“I’m sure it will, too, but I can still vent about it. Who does that?”

Avery sat beside her mother, careful to not spill her spaghetti sauce over her work. She had piles of it strewn over the table. So many articles for reference, so many multicolored sticky notes labeling her drafts.

Avery’s fork, right about to reach her mouth, clattered to her plate. She’d had a perfect cop-out for telling her parents about Arkęh:na all along without directly involving herself in the process. She could easily slip in its existence without getting in trouble and without answering questions.

“You alright?” her father asked, questioning her skewed fork.

Avery ate two mouthfuls of spaghetti. “Yeah. Hey, Mom? I was, uh, going around in the woods, walking north like normal, when I discovered this cave—”

“Oh, no,” she said. “No more caves, Avery, please. Your father was just telling me about more and more cave-ins happening where he works.”

“One got us unexpectedly. It broke out wooden beams and almost buried a guy.”

“I-It was before I fell. I was exploring it for a few minutes, but then I started getting a really weird feeling, like I was being followed or something. I was pretty deep down, enough to use my flashlight. I walked down some more tunnels, then I heard something. It was like I heard…” She paused, drawing in her father and raising her mother’s eyebrow. “…like I heard _people_ talking inside the cave, like in the walls.”

“That’s strange,” her mother said.

“Maybe you heard someone’s voice reverberating off the walls. Maybe you heard hikers.”

“I don’t think it was a hiker. It was like they were speaking in a different language. And then I heard tapping on the wall and ran out.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this before?” her mother questioned.

“Because both of you were gone when I came back,” she lied. “You were so busy with your work and I was so, uh, tired and flabbergasted that I just went to bed. Wouldn’t that be a great story to tell? Maybe I can bring you in and you can check it out for yourself. If we end up finding anything, it’ll make a great writing piece.”

Her mother held up her pointer finger. “First: I don’t take on writing pieces without first going over it with my publishing agency.” She put up a second finger. “Second: I can’t hike up those long trails you do, and third—” A third finger. “I’m not going into some creepy cave that’s pitch black and follow voices who whisper to passerbys. I’m not letting God take me that easily.”

“If you want, I can go with you,” her father suggested. “I can make sure the paths you go on are safe.”

Slightly discouraged that the reporter would have no interest in seeing the sight for herself, Avery ate her dinner in silence. While the hope for one of her parents finding out the initial secret by themselves would help, she still needed to convince the Arkęh:nen that they had to leave, or at least needed to see the values of fresh air, a daily Sun intake, and the idea of being free from the prison they created.

 

──✧──

 

The next day, she walked down into Arkęh:na with her head buried in her phone,  blinding herself on its lowest setting. Knowing Cameron wouldn’t be up at two in the afternoon, she turned right, walked over the small bridge over the Rivière, and made sure not to disrupt the psychic den with her idle steps.

Maywood was carefully threading a line of silk through her spinning wheel as Avery walked in. “ _Hello_ ,” she said. “ _I don’t think Cameron’s up yet._ ”

Basil walked in from another room on his single crutch, trying to carry a box with one hand. He barely made it to the stone table before Avery dove to help him.

“ _Thanks_ ,” he said.

“ _No problem. Has your leg healed yet?_ ”

“ _No. These fractures take months to heal._ ”

“ _Months?_ ” She checked the fragileness of Maywood’s legs. “ _Maywood, have you always had leg pain?_ ”

“ _As long as I can remember, yes,_ ” she said. “ _My Fader was unusually tall, and I unfortunately carried on that gene._ ”

Avery consulted her notes.

“ _What’re you doing with that phone?_ ” Basil asked. “ _You’re going to blind yourself._ ”

“ _I’m trying to convince Cameron that these pains you’re all suffering are more or less contributed to Arkęh:na. I want you all to become Autrean._ ”

Maywood, startled, dropped her cane on the floor. “ _What do you mean?_ ”

Avery picked it up. “ _Living in a cave your whole life isn’t healthy. It’s like being trapped inside your room all day with no Sun. You’ll get sick._ ”

“ _We’re fine the way we are,_ ” Basil argued.

“ _If you lived on the surface, you wouldn’t have to wait months for you legs to heal. Maywood, you could get braces for your legs, and Cameron could take medicine for their cough._ ”

Basil touched the bandages nearest his ankle. He flinched, hissing back pain.

“ _I love Arkęh:na and want to see it grow, but I don’t want one cave-in or sudden sickness to ruin what you’ve all created. At least see the Sun once or twice a day to get the vitamins you need. Stretch, exercise, eat an assortment of food that you’ve never seen before. I know it sounds scary, leaving a place you feel safe in, but right now, that place is hurting you, and it’d be right of you to make a better future for yourselves. Society can benefit a lot from what Arkęh:na has to offer, but first you have step out of your shell and explore_.”

She hadn’t meant to go as far as she did, but once she finished, out of breath and rethinking everything, Maywood and Basil lowered their heads, fiddling with silkworms. The two other workers in the room cleared their throats, not wanting to comment but also letting Avery know they’d overheard her.

As she went to clarify a few of her points, a knock came from outside.

Cameron, wrapped up in their bear pelt, stepped in. Their nose was red and scratchy like they’d been itching it all day, and their bedhead looked messier than normal as it shaded their sleepy eyes.

“ _Are you feeling better_?” Maywood asked hopefully.

“ _Worse_ ,” they said. “ _The Grandmoeders called me down. I don’t know what I did, being that I’ve been in bed all month_.”

“ _Let me come with you_ ,” Avery said.

“ _You can’t_.”

She got up anyway and waved to Basil and Maywood still thinking over her offer. “ _I can walk with you. You can barely stand_.”

Cameron leaned on the doorway. “ _I can walk by myself_.”

She righted them and hooked their arm around hers. “ _You’re such a liar_.”

The cool breezes of the Grandmoeder’s den welcomed them inside. All five Grandmoeders sat accounted for, all sitting on their blanketed beds adorned by candles and gemmes. Grandmoeder Geneva smiled at them when they entered.

Grandmoeder Nai’s upper lip curled. “ _We didn’t call you_.”

“ _Cameron’s sick. It’s hard for them to move around right now_.”

“ _They do not need your help_ ,” she told her, but her words meant little to Avery. Her need to help them stay alive a few more years made her ignore the nervous sweat dripping down her armpits.

“ _I had a feeling she and they would come as a group_ ,” Grandmoeder Geneva said. “ _I’ve heard these two don’t leave each other’s sides_.”

“ _They didn’t talk for nearly a month_ ,” Nai reminded her.

“ _Yes, but I’m sure they didn’t leave each other’s minds, did they_?”

Avery didn’t know if she expected an answer, so she said nothing. The beating of her heart should’ve made it clear, but she wanted to believe the Grandmoeders couldn’t hear her heart beat from across the den.

“ _Anywho_ ,” Grandmoeder Geneva said. “ _I wanted to ask you two a few questions I’m sure you have the answers to. Avery, your head seems quite full these days. Do you wish to let go some of those thoughts?_ ”

“ _May I?_ ” she asked, glancing at the other Grandmoeders in the room.

“ _You may._ ”

She looked down at her phone for fifteen or so seconds, quickly scrolling through all of her notes, then tried regurgitating them in a sophisticated manner. She hadn't expected the speech to come so soon. Cameron helped define some of the untranslatable words like airborne diseases and neurological disorders. Avery knew saying it in English would be easier, but it felt unjust if she said it in anything other than Arkęh:nen.

She listed off all the problems the caves gave them and what little they did to help them. She mentioned that most Autreans would be kind to them, but that they would need an adjustment period to understand them. The idea of hospitals, the benefits of fresh water. Everything that could help them understand their situation, she explained to the best of her abilities. She wanted to hold Cameron’s hand while she spoke, but she knew they’d only distract her, so she kept her argument focused on the ones whose decisions affected the whole.

When she had no more arguments to bring up, Grandmoeder Geneva, like always, smiled. “ _That’s quite a case you’ve created all on your own, and to speak it in our native tongue, too_.”

“ _She has the vocabulary of a child_ ,” Grandmoeder Nai commented on, though her aggressive stance disappeared through thought.

“ _I see your concerns, my child, and I do agree with a lot of your points. I, too, have had unease about our living conditions since I was small._ ”

Cameron gasped at that, and Avery turned to see them staring wide-eyed at their Grandmoeder. They had their bear pelt clutched close to their heart, hanging on her every word.

“ _To see my children perishing in, as you put it, avoidable ways scares me for our future. Even if some of us might not be able to admit it, we know that our sicknesses are becoming deadlier than we can handle. It needs to be addressed._ ”

She lifted her hand from underneath her blankets. Her bloated, age-spotted joints shook from arthritis. “ _We all face the troubles Arkęh:na has beset us with. While it’s been our home for generations, it seems time we think carefully about what we cherish more: our ancestry, or our future_.”

Grandmoeder Nai looked like she wanted to say something, so Avery quickly interjected with, “ _And your traditions, your families, all of that can still stay with you. It’s just your place of living that needs to change in order to keep those traditions fruitful. Living here used to keep you safe, but now it’s killing you, and you owe it to your ancestors to keep their efforts alive_.”

Grandmoeder Geneva nodded along with most of the other Grandmoeders. Grandmoeder Nai lowered her head and kept her arguments to herself.

“ _We shall discuss it together_ ,” Geneva said. “ _You two are free to leave now_.”

To Avery’s surprise, Cameron took her hand first and darted for the exit. They walked so fast that she needed to be careful not to step on their dragging pelt.

When she shut the wooden door, she sighed against it and said, “ _That went okay. Did I mess anything up_?”

Cameron crumpled against the wall just above the bug-lit lantern and hid their face in their hands. Their blanket snagged on the rocks and gave them a comfortable niche in which to cry. Their sniffling escaped their shaking hands.

Avery fell beside them. “ _What’s wrong_?”

“ _I…I don’t want to leave. It’s our home, it’s everything we know. If we leave now…_ ”

Having no other way to console them, Avery rubbed the back of her sick friend in nothing but understanding and support.

“ _Why do we have to leave?_ ” they cried.

“ _Because otherwise you'll die_.”

“ _I'd rather die here_.”

“ _You can’t. I still have to marry you_.”

“ _What does that even mean_?” they asked, not looking for an answer. Instead, they held her back and sniffled into her shoulder, already knowing the Grandmoeders’ decision the moment they left.


	25. The Decision

Cameron knew Avery had reshaped the Grandmoeders’ hearts when Grandmoeder Nai gained a twinkle in her eye. It took a lot to persuade her into doing anything she didn’t want to do, but Cameron saw it, and so did Grandmoeder Geneva. Geneva was the final call, the decision maker, and Avery had sold her on the idea of uprooting their whole world just to heal a common cough.

That morning—Avery’s evening—she left with a short kiss to Cameron’s temple and more encouraging words that it would be alright.

But it wouldn’t be, and what they hated the most was that they believed her. Everything she told them sounded clear as rain. They _did_ need to leave, and the quicker they did, the better. For them, for the Grandmoeders, for every single child born from here on after.

But Cameron would’ve rather died in their den than risk coming out to the world.

Leaks about the Grandmoeders decision swept through Arkęh:na like one of Avery’s “viruses,” spreading misinformation and dangerous rumors about what might happen. Some said they’d be forced into piles of snow, others said they’d have to walk the streets. The biggest rumor, the one Cameron almost believed, said they’d all live with Avery until they built a new mountain for themselves by hand.

Avery told them her Moeder and Fader would help handle their move, but how could they? 314 Arkęh:nen needed to pack up and leave to some unknown destination. They had trouble believing two Autreans could help aid with something they weren’t involved with.

Cameron sat awake in bed, thinking all of this over. They knew deep down that they shouldn’t be angry with Avery. She had their best intentions in mind. She wanted to see them safe, and they wanted to see her happy.

After the Grandmoeders’ verdict, Cameron cried into their bear pelt for days.

Nobody really talked about the future move. With the decision made, everyone just started packing with no real thought put into it. Cameron would wake up one day to their neighbors’ belongings towering in the tunnles. Later they found out this was all trash, things that could be thrown away. Cameron went through every pile and salvaged what they could.

Soon enough their Moeder stopped working. Dozens of Arkęh:nen craved her advice during this turbulent time, so much that she exerted herself. Drained of power, she came back one day and stayed for the rest of the week.

She and Cameron slept together for the first time in years, her back pressed against theirs, her gentle snoring bringing Cameron back to infancy. After their Fader left, her snores had been only ways they could get to sleep. Now, knowing she couldn’t work partly because of Cameron kept them awake for days.

One night, as they tried not to shift the blankets, their Moeder touched their shoulder. “Rest.”

“Sorry.”

“Everything will be alright. This’s been foreshadowed for months. Every since we met Avery, we knew this was going to happen.”

“But where’re we going to go? ‘ _Hospitals_ ’? ‘ _Rescue centers_ ’? The Autreans don’t even speak our language. They won’t understand.”

“Avery is Autrean, and Basil if half-Autrean. Once you got to know them, they weren’t that hard to understand, were they?”

“Basil’s still a mystery to me.”

It sounded like they got their Moeder to chuckle. “I’m sure he is.”

Cameron bunched up their pelt close to their face. “Moeder, I’m…I’m scared. I don't want to leave.”

“I know. Emotions are the hardest to deal with at night. That's why we always want someone close to us before we go to bed.” She continued massaging Cameron’s shoulder.

“Moeder, do you want to leave?”

“Absolutely not.”

The way she said it so bluntly made them smile a bit, a half-smirk they could barely raise from their pillow. “Do you hate Avery, then?”

She sighed. “I hate that she’s right, and I’m fearful of how much you’ve grown attached to her. Feelings are something I’ve mastered through my readings, yet it’s become a burden to me. It’s something I avoid, a sickness I’m afraid of catching. You’ve helped me overcome a lot of those fears, especially after your Fader passed away.”

“I've helped _you_?” They couldn’t believe it. “How?”

“Ever since I met your Fader, we had a falling out that could never be fixed. We were on a bridge that continuously swayed. That swaying only grew once we had you. His desire to leave countrasted my need to stay underground. When he left, the bridge snapped and I was left stranded with you. After that, I closed myself off. It was you who dug out any semblance of love I had left in my heart. When I heard Avery argue about leaving, I was back on that bridge, but instead of having you in my arms, you were on the other side with Avery.”

“I had a dream about him right before you and Avery argued.”

“Isn’t that the way,” she said. “All dreams connect to ourselves in the now, waking themselves when we ourselves need to be woken up.” Her restless hand found its way into Cameron’s hair. “Get some rest. Avery promised to meet us tomorrow to discuss how this’ll go. You'll find peace with her.”

“I'll try,” they said with a cough, and stayed up for most of the night.

 

──✧──

 

The bustle outside their den woke them up. Arkęh:na had woken up about an hour earlier than usual, too nervous to sleep, too nervous to finalize packing.

They found their Moeder sifting through their gemme collection. Most of what could be brought to the surface was already packed outside. Only the bulkier parts of Cameron’s gemme collection remained.

Their heart skipped. She’d never touched them before. “I-I’m going to sort through them now,” they said.

“You’ve collected quite a lot here,” she said. “Some of these are quite rare.”

“They are?”

She handed them one of their least favorite gemmes. “This one is quite drawn to you. It holds a lot of positive, healing energy. Have you had it for a while?”

“Yeah, but every time I tried connecting to it, I never felt anything.”

“You feel calmer when you’re around them, don’t you?”

“Yeah. I like collecting them.”

“Then how are they not doing their job?”

Cameron rolled the ruby gemme between their fingers, then pocketed it for later.

“Some of these gemmes might feel better if they were left here,” she then added. “They’re able to live here. We cannot.”

“I know.”

“But they’ll still love you, even if you’re apart from them.”

They bit their lower lip. “I know.”

She wrapped one arm around them. “It’ll be alright.”

Their eyes welled up. Before they could let go against her, the bell within their den, as well as every bell in their tunnle, rang.

“The Grandmoeders said they wanted us to be at the Centrum,” their Moeder said, and helped Cameron out.

Not ready, they double-checked the remainder of their gemmes, making sure they had every last important one.

Their Moeder waited in the hall, making room for those heeding the Grandmoeders’ call.

Cameron dawdled. There had to be something else they could do, something they were missing.

They raised their head to Nuvu still hanging on her grate. They sighed in relief as they cooed for her. “Nuvu, let’s go.”

She clicked her tongue at them.

“We have to go,” they said. “Come on.”

She stared her owner down.

Cameron reached higher. She never listened. “Nuvu.”

“Cameron,” their Moeder whispered. “I think Nuvu has to stay. Bats belong in caves. Arkęh:nen…Humans do not.”

Cameron grit their teeth as they reached higher and higher, waiting for her to fly to their hand like they’d trained her to do, but she didn’t. Chirping softly, she wrapped her wings around herself and got comfortable on her perch.

Cameron dropped their arms. The stubborn blood gradually drained back into their fingertips.

“Don’t hold it against her, my child,” their Moeder said. “She belongs here.”

“We do, too.”

She touched the middle of their back, helping them leave. After giving Nuvu a tearful look, they finally, finally, turned away.

They and their Moeder stood in the curtainless doorway. Their den looked so empty now. The places where Cameron’s gemme boxes had sat open for so many years left imprints in the hard earth. Even without blankets, their bed was probably warm enough to crawl back in to.

“Once we move, we can visit here all you want,” their Moeder said. “I’ll take you back on trips.”

Cameron touched the edges of the walls, then erupted into coughing.

“Let’s go,” she said, picking up their belongings. They'd wrapped them in bundles and boxed them in crates. “Fresh air can only help you at this point.”

“So you say,” Cameron said, but followed her down the ladders and bridges regardless.

About 200 Arkęh:nen stood ready at the Centrum with their belongings. Toddlers ran around their parents, who gossiped about the move with their neighbors. The other 100 or so were still packaging away their homes. They lined the walls, whispering their reservations.

The _ville_ and artisan huts had been swept clean. Wood that once made up shacks had been repurposed as boxes. Most of the artisans had deemed their spinning wheels too cumbersome to carry and left them behind. All the bats in the carrier bat hut hung on their grates, still asleep. What was once a thriving village now looked like a crowded prison cell.

Cameron’s Moeder guided them through the sea of whispers to Basil, Maywood, and their Moeder. Their Moeder had found something to argue about with Basil. Basil looked to be holding himself back. “I’m fine.”

“You're not. Knock it off and let me carry your things.”

When Cameron’s Moeder came into view, Basil’s and Maywood’s Moeder lowered her voice and yanked the box out of Basil’s hand.

“Hello, Exia,” Cameron’s Moeder said. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around to give you your readings. I know this week must’ve been stressful for you.”

She closed herself off with her shawl. “It’s been terrible, knowing I have to do all this moving by myself. Maywood and Basil here, trying to work in the conditions they’re in? Where’re the Grandmoeders, and the Autrean girl?”

“She’ll be here soon,” Cameron said. “She usually comes around this time.”

“Do you need to sit down?” Maywood asked them. She’d been sitting on one of their pile of belongings, resting her tired legs.

Cameron didn’t answer. Ignoring the back and forth, they’d been listening to the talk around them, then the loud cacophony of sound in general. Like piercing through a misty film, the sound grew louder and louder until one piercing scream broke through the rest.

Cameron didn’t know where to move first. It sounded like water was rushing in on them from all sides, but they knew it was rock.  Tumbling, free-falling rocks aiming to bury them. These cave-ins, these sinful strings of fate breaking off at the seams, you couldn’t prepare for them. Everything happened in seconds and destroyed life even quicker.

The Main Exit Tunnle went first. A cloud of rock, a screech, and then it was gone. Then the ceiling collapsed. It caved in and splashed into the Rivière, burying the artisan district. Bat flew into the air. Babies cried. Arkęh:nen screamed for the Grandmoeders’ safety as they ran from being crushed.

Maybe this was Arkęh:na’s final way at saying goodbye. Knowing its inhabitants were abandoning it, it felt only just to bury them all in one shared grave.

Cameron ate their words. Avery had been right. They’d wanted to die in Arkęh:na, but they never wanted Arkęh:na to _kill_ them.

They went for their Moeder’s hand, but she was gone, swept away by the running crowds. Lost, they fell on their back and watched helplessly as all of Arkęh:na fell on top of them.


	26. Breaking Point

Avery was screwed. What was she thinking? The weight of 300 people’s lives rested on her shoulders, and now she had a pop quiz next Monday in math. It scared her how little she cared for the latter when, just a few months ago, she would’ve been sitting in the very same school bathroom worrying about such a simple thing.

She’d lied right to Cameron’s face. How could she help them? Sure, she’d laid out a plan. She’d laid out six plans, each one better than the next, each with hours and hours of thought put into them, but was that enough? What would she do with the sick, with people like Maywood who needed extra care because of her legs? All of them would need medical care to some degree. Who would pay for that? She’d read online that the state would care for some homeless people if their conditions were serious enough, but the Arkęh:nen weren’t even citizens. They could be refused care because of that.

But she had to do it. Everyone would likely be lining up right now. It was her fail-safe if she were to have gotten cold feet and pushed back the migration a week, a year. Hundreds of people were now waiting for her to act, and she was waiting for her mother to pick her up.

She’d skipped last period and hid the bathroom, trembling. What was she doing? Why did it have to be her? She just wanted to sink through the floors and pretend that Cameron would be alright without her help.

The bell rang and kickstarted her heart. In an hour she’d be responsible for three hundred lives. She needed to move. She needed to be brave.

She picked up her bag and walked out of the stall. She stared at herself in the mirror, swayed a moment, then lost her stomach in the closest sink. It burned coming out and smelled of sour, rotten food, but she withstood the feeling until she had nothing left inside of her. Spitting out the warm sludge around her gums, she looked back up at herself and still saw the same girl, just a little sicker, but still able to do what she’d set out to do.

She washed down the grossness, made sure none of it had stained her shirt, and left. She’d hidden the first-floor bathrooms near the lobby so nobody would walk in on her, but as she was halfway out of the door, she knocked shoulders with someone in more of a hurry than her.

Bridget gasped and caught the pile of books about to spill out of her hands. Avery caught one and their fingers touched, but instead of getting flustered, her nerves stayed at critically high. Maybe she’d hit her limit and little nuances like touching her old crush’s hands didn’t phase her as much.

“Hi,” Bridget said, breathless. “I was searching all over for you. I was wondering when you wanted to do that interview. My teacher said they wanted it done this week.”

“I’m actually going to be really busy for a while.” Avery scanned for her mother’s car in the parking lot.

Bridge stepped in front of her. “If you want, we can do it during a study hall.”

“Yeah, that sounds fine.” She fished out her phone and read over her notes. She’d typed out a speech for her mother to get her on board with Arkęh:na, but she’d edited and re-editing it so much that likely remembering it instead of reading it word for word would’ve been better.

Bridget fiddled with the corners of her books. “Hey, actually, I was wondering if you wanted to, you know, hang out this Saturday to do it. I have to go grocery shopping with my father, but maybe we can…schedule something at my house.” She looked away as she said it, then looked at Avery to see if she’d heard her.

Avery paused, thinking over such an enticing offer. She’d deleted her number. Her username was blocked. She’d prepared on avoiding her until graduation and then all of high school. Could they really start over like this, staying friends?

She opened her phone back to her text messages, reminding her of what she needed to focus on. “I don’t think I can. I don’t think I’ll have a lot of free time for the next three or four…weeks.”

Bridget deflated. “Oh. Well, maybe we can hang out when you’re not busy. Can I have your schedule for next month? My family was planning a camping trip during Valentine’s Day—”

Avery went to text her mother, hoping Bridget would catch on, when she heard the buses rev up their engines and churn out of the parking lot. Between Bus 12 and 14, her mother’s car was waiting by the flagpole.

“I-I gotta go,” she said, fixing her bag on her shoulder. “Sorry. I’ll text you.”

She didn’t turn back. Racing between the buses still readying themselves to go, Avery jumped over the curb and flew into her mother’s car.

“Hello,” her mother said, eyes wide. “Everything okay?”

“Yes?”

“Yes?”

She got herself comfortable, her fingers running up and down her backpack straps. “Not really.”

Her mother went to turn off the car. “You’ve been crying. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Can you drive, please? I need to tell you something important, but I don’t want…Can you start driving?”

Looking at her skeptically, her mother turned on the car and pulled out to the main road. “Did you fail something? Did you get detention?”

“It has nothing to do with school.”

“What, did you get in a fight with someone? Your teachers?”

“No, no.” She braced herself for a thousand questions she’d have to answer a thousand times. “Cameron—”

“Are you pregnant?”

Her jaw dropped, but the sheer illogical threads that tied her to Cameron made her smile for the first time that day. “We can’t get pregnant.”

“Oh, okay. I don’t…” Slightly embarrassed, her mother let go of the tension in her shoulders. “Then what it is?”

She had to tell her soon enough, and she’d told her about her sexuality and nothing had gone wrong. She hadn’t been disowned. She hadn’t been kicked out. What else did she have to lose? Her mother was one of her closest, smartest friends, and any other questions she had could’ve been answered by her.

Feeling slightly better, Avery took a deep breath. “Cameron lives underground. They live in a cave in the forest. It’s the reason why I’ve been going into the forest so often. They live there, along with about three hundred or so other people. It’s a society. They call it Arkęh:na.”

Before her mother could react, Avery continued, her heart thumping in her ears. “And they’re sick. They’re getting sicker. It’s because they’ve lived inside these caves all their life. I convinced their elders to let them leave, which is very hard for them to do because their culture was based on keeping their people alive by hiding them. But now they need to leave and I need help getting them out.”

Her mother kept driving. She drove down main street, took a turn where the farmlands met the post office. She sniffed once, rapped her fingers over the steering wheel. Avery wondered what was more shocking to her: knowing about Arkęh:na or knowing Avery had kept yet another secret from her for months. At least it hadn’t been years. She couldn’t have withstood holding in two secrets for that long.

“I knew it.”

Avery was too scared to look at her. She didn’t know why, but it felt wrong to meet her gaze. “What?”

“When they slept over that one time, I got to talking to them.”

“What—How?”

“I brought up an online translator. It was patchy, but it worked. They speak a type of Dutch, and they told me something about a cave and their people. I thought the translation was wrong. I didn’t know what Arkęh:na was. I tried researching it, but nothing came up.”

“Wait, so you knew for this long?”

“W-well, it depends. Are you serious?”

“I’m not lying, so, uhm…yes, I’m serious.”

Her mother gawked at the road, blinking rapidly and flexing her fingers over the steering wheel. “So you’re serious? They really live in a cave? There’s, what, three hundred of them, you said? That’s not possible.”

“Well, it’s a system of caves, like how ants build their tunnels that connect into other tunnels.”

“How long have they been living down there?”

She guesstimated. “Probably since the 1600s, maybe a little more. They don’t know what cars do, if that helps you paint a picture of how they live.”

The truth swept over her mother like a storm, each sheet of rain slamming into her and leaving her gaping for words. “Well…so, what do we do now? Do we call the police and have them take care of it?”

“T-they didn’t do anything wrong,” Avery defended. “They don’t know how our society works. They’re not citizens.”

“It’s not only that. There’s a whole bunch of procedures and rules that need to be followed. We’ll have to get in contact with…I don’t even know. Where are they in the forest?”

“Up the hill.”

“I can’t walk that far. We’ll wait until your father comes home before we start calling people. The police should be involved. If three hundred people leave the forest, unable to speak English and lost and cold, they’ll be questioned by the police regardless, or at least the state troopers. You said they’re sick?”

“A lot of them are, yes.”

“Then ambulances should be dispatched. But first, I want your father to confirm this for me, make sure you aren’t losing it in those caves. God, I knew my feelings about those mountains were true. Mother Instincts are never wrong.”

“I can’t wait that long. I promised Cameron I’d be there after school. They’re all waiting for me. They’re packed to leave.”

“Well, tell them to wait. You shouldn’t have waited this long to tell me about this. We’ll have to take this slow. Are you sure this can’t wait until tomorrow?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll go out and ask.”

“Good. In the meantime, I’ll call your father about this. He’ll never believe me. How is this going to work?”

With the weight of the entirety of Arkęh:na somewhat off of her shoulders, Avery breathed a welcomed sigh of relief. The hardest part was over. The worry about coming out to her mother about this faded from existence. Now all she had to do was help Cameron out of those tunnels.


	27. The Leader

The rumbling never ended. In their head, in their stomach, the world kept shaking, a fearful animal too scared to move.

Their hands kept shaking even when the ground stopped. Rocks from the ceiling now cut into their palms, but still, they didn’t move.

One because they didn’t want to get up and risk hitting their head. They couldn't see very clearly and couldn't tell where they were and how close they were to a cavern or a pointed rock. Two because it kept them grounded. Whatever was left of Arkęh:na, as long as they can touch the earth, they had a place to stay.

But they couldn’t keel over and get buried underneath their own home. They had a job to do, and it cried out for help all around them.

Confused outcries and questions sprouted from the ruins of Arkęh:na. Dust poisoned the air and made it hard to breathe. The unnatural smell of wet soil replaced the thick odor of the Arkęh:na’s tunnles. As the rumbling subsided, not many babies or children cried. It made their mothers cry in their wake.

Someone touched them. The feeling of their calloused hand was enough for Cameron to bury their face into their bosoms.

“Moeder.” They reached out for her through the dust. She was on the ground.

“I hurt my hip.” She struggled to stand and failed, breathing so unnormally that Cameron considered if they were truly talking to their Moeder at all.

“Don’t,” they said. “Lean on me. I’ll carry you.”

“ _You_ carry me?” she said, almost chuckling before coughing hoarsely. “Where’s everyone?”

“I-I’m here,” Maywood said far off to their left.

“Where’s Basil?”

Cameron didn’t know who’d said it first, because both they, their Moeder, and Maywood asked it at the same time. They didn’t wait long to hear an answer.

Basil grunted as he shoveled something away from him. “I’m here.”

Maywood pushed aside their fallen world and helped him up. Both he and she used her cane to stand. Their Moeder came out next, who seemed in best health aside from her shawl, which was now stuck between the rocks. She touched both of her children’s shoulders, but Cameron couldn’t tell if it was a loving gesture or if it was to stabilize herself over the rubble. They liked to think it was the prior.

They’d survived, but those whose fates were not accounted for, the ones who helped guide them the best…

“Where’s the Grandmoeders?”

The single question sent everyone into a frenzy. Here, there, people darted around rocks to locate their beloved leaders. Some even climbed over the new mountains in order to see farther out. While all of them took the hands of those calling out for help, their real loyalties lied with the women buried somewhere beneath their feet.

Cameron turned in circles, surveying just how little room they had to walk around. People disappeared in and out of debris still settling into place, trying to dig out cries they couldn’t see, people they’d lost.

They braced themselves and lifted their Moeder up. She kept off her right leg entirely, too heavy to balance out her weight.

Maywood knelt beside her. Her own Moeder’s hand wouldn’t leave her shoulder. “Where’re you hurt?”

“My side, and my back. I’m alive. Look for others.”

“How is this real?” Basil asked, his hand covering his mouth.

Cameron’s Moeder held her head, gritting her teeth. Either she had a headache or something else was upsetting her. Did she know this would happen? Was she experiencing a swell of new possibilities that would affect so many? Was she scared? Was she in pain?

Cameron nuzzled their head on her good shoulder. In return, she ran a gentle hand through their hair, then sat on a rock to catch her breath. She copied Basil and covered her mouth with her shirt.

“Moeder, may I go search for others?”

Their Moeder stared at her child from around her knuckles, never breaking eye contact with them. And neither did Cameron. If they didn’t cough, if they could fake being healthy for a few seconds, then they could go out and save Arkęh:nen life. They loved their gemmes, but Arkęh:na would always have their heart first.

With one slow nod, Cameron pulled their shirt over their face and set off. Their Moeder shouted advice and warnings at them, all of which they knew and practiced regularly, but they took it to heart. They didn't run. They didn’t panic. Avery had once told them that sometimes, if her laptop was covered by her covers, it would overheat and shut down until it cooled off, so Cameron imagined themselves as such. They took their time. They breathed out of their mouth. They were seconds away from shutting down, but they still had a few more tasks to complete.

Families cried as they tried organizing others around them. Most clung to one another and kept asking the same questions to everyone’s vague answers. How badly Cameron wanted to go to each of them and give them false senses of securities. But they couldn’t dwell on those wants. They had a job to fulfill to what was left of Arkęh:na.

On they went, pushing aside boulders that moved easily and others that couldn’t. They discovered more families that’d been ripped apart and those who’d just been reunited. While they shared a collective happiness, their wandering eyes kept threading through the unturned rock.

Cameron stopped. They’d chosen to go towards the Main Exit Tunnle when they felt a tingle down their right side. They shook it off and went with their gut, but the feeling remained, tugging on them like a child who’d spotted an enticing toy.

Their feet brought them between the Grandmoeders’ Den tunnle and a mountainous part of the collapsed ceiling. The tunnle entrance was somewhat navigable, but their feeling didn’t bring them there. It brought them to pile of rock with pieces of wood sticking out, crushed.

A rock tripped out of the rubble, then another. A weak, elderly hand, reaching out through the rock, beckoning, pleading for a savior. “ _Help_.”

Cameron ran only to trip and fall right before the hand. Their vision doubled, body  tilted. Then they grasped the hand and rounded its bulging veins and hardened wrinkles. It felt cold, lifeless, but it was shivering with determination to survive.

A soft tear fell from Cameron’s eye. “ _Help_!” they screamed, then coughed, cleared their throat, and raised their head to be heard. “Grandmoeder Nai is buried! Someone, help me! _Help_!”

A dozen heads sprung up around the rubble and rushed to their aid. Three muscular men and two women bounded over and started digging without question. One lifted up a large rock to give others enough space to dig.

Grandmoeder Nai had lost her blankets and had a purplish bruise on her temple. She couldn’t stand without the help of three large men, but once she found her feet, she didn't fall.

“Are you okay?”

“Do you need anything?”

“Can you stand?”

“Wait,” she wheezed, and pointed behind her.

Cameron’s eyes narrowed into the small opening of rocky dirt. They went on their hands and knees to go in themselves, but the larger-bodied Arkęh:nen offered by jumping in one by one. They shuffled around the debris, puffing out dust and making a sizeable hole to carry out Grandmoeder Geneva.

Grandmoeder Nai’s blanket was wrapped around her. Her leg was twisted. She wouldn’t open one of her eyes, which was inflamed and bleeding badly. Her head sagged as if asleep. When her rescuers asked questions pertaining to her health, she didn’t  respond.

Cameron didn’t know when one tear morphed into sobbing, but when they fell beside her, they cried into her torn sleeves.

Her hand touched the top of their head. She barely felt there at all, a snowflake melting into their hair.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Cameron said, pleading for forgiveness for any number of grievances.

“Do…not apologize,” she panted. “You did…everything right.”

They wanted to believe it, but they couldn’t stop imagining a world without her in it. They felt happy knowing they could talk to her and hear her advice. Fate couldn’t take her away now, not when it’d already taken away their home.

“Is there any water?” one person asked. “Does anyone have any food or bandages?”

“The falls collapsed,” another said.

“Here, take my shirt.”

“I have a few pieces of jerky.”

“They can’t eat that. Someone chew it for them.”

“I'll do it.”

In a half-hour of panicked searching, they tried digging out every Grandmoeder they could before making a decision. Some were worse than others, some more conscious than others. The worst external injuries were those of Grandmoeder Geneva’s, who kept falling asleep whenever someone stopped talking to her.

But even so, even with her injuries, she wouldn't let Cameron be her crutch. Neither would their Moeder. It was like they cared more for Cameron’s wellbeing than their own, which was something they couldn’t wrap their head around. The only way they understood it was relating it to how Avery treated them. They wondered if that came from being “stronger” than the other person or from love.

They’d been sectioned off from two-thirds of Arkęh:na. They heard echoes of those calling out to friends and family, but through the collapse, they couldn’t reach them. The ones with the loudest voices relaid information about their found Grandmoeders and Moeders and the condition of their homes. Cameron’s side had three Grandmoeders, many of the psychics, and the remains of the Falls and the Main Exit Tunnle.

“Where should we go?” one person—Barron—asked, which created a wave of more questions with no clear answers.

Cameron’s Moeder sat on the ground during these discussions to keep off of her sore hip. Whenever someone asked about her pain, she clenched her jaw and lied, saying she was fine.

Cameron didn’t have the strength to call her out on her hypocrisy, so they kept it to themselves. Maybe it was genetic, this stubborn worry for everyone other than yourself. What they couldn’t keep to themselves was the easiest answer that most Arkęh:nen, who kept tracing their kaart scars, had yet to find.

When the questions died out to mere mumbling, Cameron took a step forwards. “I can find a way out.”

Half of them turned. A third of them eyed them with justifiable doubt.

“There’s the tunnle where Grandmoeder Nai and Grandmoeder Geneva were found. It’s the most stable. If we were to leave, we should go there.”

“But some of us are too hurt to move,” one person argued. “Your own Moeder can’t even walk.”

Cameron remembered to exhale slowly so they didn’t cough. “If they stay here, they’ll be in more trouble than if they moved someplace safer. Look at us.” They held open their arms, showcasing the coughing, the baby cries, the lost, the hurt. “We need to move elsewhere, and I know the tunnles better than”—They stopped themselves before they insulted anyone listening—“my own den. I can go by myself or with others, but I don’t think we should leave anyone behind.”

Just then, a sizable rock broke off from the ceiling and rolled down near Grandmoeder Nai. Basil jerked and pulled her out of the way just as the rocks fell.

Grandmoeder Nai whimpered and held onto her grandson for safety. Basil blushed with conflicting emotions.

“It’s not safe either way,” Cameron pushed, “but please, if someone can just follow me and see, I’m sure it’ll be safe.”

“How do you know?” one person asked.

“I don’t. Just like with my gemmes, I just feel it.”

When no one stood up for them or grabbed their bags to journey with them, Cameron sunk their head in shame. They shouldn’t have said anything. Their unprepared bursts of decision-making shouldn’t have even been considered amongst their family. They’d have to come up with something clearer and safer.

Then their Moeder stood up. “Let’s go, then.”

The crowd reacted in the way Cameron wished they’d done in the first place.

“Are you sure?”

“Moeder Ellinor, your hip.”

“My child is right,” she said, “and if no one wants to believe them, fine. I, however, am going.”

“I go…where my children go,” Grandmoeder Geneva whispered, and startled those taking care of her.

A murmur of discussion passed through the crowd. It sounded like most of them didn’t want to go, but they much rather would’ve disagreed with Cameron than with their Moeder or Grandmoeder.

“Fine,” one of the older men said. “I’ll follow. We’ll search the tunnles and see if there's a salvageable path to the surface.”

Cameron almost waited to follow him, but they all waited on Cameron, they who hadn’t once looked at their kaart to find a new way home. They trusted them. They relied on them.

They’d never felt such a feeling before.

Cameron bowed to them in appreciation and waited for them to gather what little possessions they still had before moving. As they led them to the tunnle, Basil limped over and patted their back.

“I was waiting for you to say that,” he whispered. “I knew that if anyone could do this, it’d be you.”

They waited for him to add more compliments about how much he favored Cameron, but he didn’t. He left it at that, smiling at a truth he truly believed in.

Keeping that close to their heart, Cameron leaned down and crept into the tunnle.

And then they fell to their knees. They hadn’t expected it, as their coughing hadn’t been in an issue for much of the collapse. Their legs just gave out without permission. Their vision blotted in colors and stayed blurry even when they blinked them several times. When they came to, Maywood was crouched by their side, a blur of brown and white.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“…Yeah,” they lied, and kept one hand on the tunnle rocks as they stood up and continued on. “I’ll be fine.”


	28. Rescue Mission

“I never knew these mountains were so icy, Avery. I don’t know how I feel about you walking up here in the winter.”

Avery rolled her eyes at her father and called for her dogs to keep up. She'd convinced her parents to bring them along on this family trip to Arkęh:na. It felt right, but she smiled to herself knowing her dogs had seen the beauty of Arkęh:na before her parents had.

They had yet to call the police or any person of authority regarding Arkęh:na. To her father, Arkęh:na was a myth orchestrated by his imaginative daughter. To her mother, she still needed to see it first before she made any decisions. With how much she grunted with every muddy step, her somewhat optimistic mood was beginning to melt with the patches of ice around them.

But still, while doubt lingered in the air, they’d agreed to come along. They hadn’t left the house together as a family in months, so it was good to hear them behind her for once instead of listening to her own footsteps fade away into the trees.

“So this place, does it go deep underground?” her father asked, making small talk.

“Yeah, a bit. I’m not sure of the dimensions or anything, but my ears pop when I go down the Main Exit Tunnle.”

“And they hardly see the outside world?”

“Only those who're allowed to leave can. They’re called scavengers. They’re like borrowers who take rope and discarded metals from our world to use in theirs.”

“And how is this world kept up?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “Why?”

“I'm just concerned. A world like this where so few people see the light of day, I’m surprised they’re still alive.”

Avery slowed to a stop, Oreo stopping faithfully behind her, Pumpkin running up ahead. She knew something was wrong a few steps back when she hadn’t seen the top of the mountain where she’d normally see it. She tried to double-check to see if talking to her father had drawn her off course, but she knew these hills. She’d passed the fallen log, crossed over the vernal pond. She was here, but Arkęh:na wasn’t.

The mountain longer kissed the sky or even the tree line. It was slumped now, halved like when Mount St. Helen had erupted sideways. Rocks littered the ground. Dust coated the air.

Arkęh:na had caved-in.

She lost her voice to scream. She tried to convinced herself that she’d taken the wrong path, that this was the wrong mountain, but she hadn't and it wasn't. Reality sunk into her bones and tarnished her blood, whispering into her ear that this was all her fault.

“My god,” her mother whispered. “It collapsed.”

Boulders tumbled from the slanted side and crushed newly budding oak trees. Her father gripped Avery’s arm tightly, but she wouldn’t have been crushed. _She_ wouldn't have.

She jolted awake. She found herself sitting on a boulder, piecing her reality back into place. Oreo had his head in her lap while her father was speaking to her. “Avery? Avery, hello? What’s wrong?”

 _Wrong_ . _This_ was wrong. Where was Arkęh:na? What had she done wrong? She needed to do something—scream, call for help, anything other than this—but she couldn't will herself to move.

Staring out into space, she locked onto the shape that used to be the Main Exit Tunnle buried underneath rubble.

She pushed herself up. One step, then another. She cleared away what she could and dug out the entrance she’d rested in so many times. With every handful of dirt, the unstable rocks came down and buried her work.

Coughing, she pressed her ear against the rock, ready to hear someone. Coughing, a bat crying, anything.

When she heard nothing but the curious birds outside, she hung her head. Pumpkin came up and licked her face, clearly understanding her pain yet having no other way to console her.

“Avery, what’s wrong? Talk to us.”

“I don’t…” But she couldn’t speak. Free-falling tears dropped from her face and clogged her words. Unable to answer them, she instead ran around the mountain and checked the hole she’d escaped from after the first cave-in.

It’d collapsed into itself, resting underneath a tomb of rock and dirt.

Avery held her head, trying to silence the incoming voices. Paramedics, the police, news crew. It would take days, maybe even weeks to dig out all 300 Arkęh:nen from the mountainside, if there were still 300 Arkęh:nen to save. Had she brought her phone, her walkie? Would she have a signal all the way out here to call for help?

She dug out her phone from her pocket and went to call 911, then saw her parents staring at her, wondering what was wrong with their daughter.

“Help,” she begged. “They’re all still in there.”

Whether from her tone or from her strange behavior, her parents stiffened and examined the rubble before them, now realizing what this cave-in meant.

“Please.” She tugged on her father’s sleeve, pulling him back home. “Please.”

“Please _what_ , Avery? We need to call this in.”

Her fingers moved on their own. She was always afraid of calling 911 on accident or on purpose, but she didn’t realize she was talking with an operator until they repeated a question to her. She also didn’t realize she was now sprinting down the hill, battling Oreo and Pumpkin with their speed, until she slipped on an icy puddle and skinned her elbow and left side.

“Hello, 911, what’s your emergency?”

She relaid everything she could to them. Her tears got in the way, but as she ran and tried not to fall, she forced herself to stop and retold her last few months as quickly and truthfully as she could. Her finding Arkęh:na, her meeting Cameron and their friends, her keeping all of it a secret. From her shivering and shaking, she blamed her childish secret-keeping on being scared, point blank. Afraid of people looking at her and thinking she was strange or weird. She got that feeling from the operator, who kept repeating what she told them in questions, but she couldn’t let this fear overtake her any longer. For Cameron’s sake, she needed to be strong, or act like it, at least. She wondered if there was a difference.

 

──✧──

 

Having two police cars ride up to her house intimidated her, but having a blaring fire truck and two ambulances come up the hill afterwards left her quaking. It felt like she’d done something wrong. She didn’t know what to say to the officers, only that Cameron, her friend, had been trapped in a cave-in, along with many others.

They brought up three side-by-side ATVs that could fit four people in each. Apparently the officers took her claims seriously. She didn’t know why that surprised her. She felt pulled apart, knowing a few people had learned about her secret, but she didn’t have time to fret and hopped into the scary half-car with a firefighter, two police officers, and her father.

It felt odd, guiding a group of strong adults up the mountain in a machine that sounded ready to fall apart every time it turned. Nobody knew where Arkęh:na was, but her directions of “turn left at the birch tree” and “see that boulder? Follow it until you see the other boulder,” undermined her confidence. Her father filled in the gaps where he could, but with his limited understanding and Avery’s stuttering voice, the officers handled the case as if they were locking down a teen party that’d gotten out of hand.

As they reached the crumbled mountainside, the officers took off their hats to understand just what’d happened in their woods. Her mother was on her phone, calling someone for extra help, but she turned it off to convene with her family.

“You said your friend’s in there?” the firefighter asked. “In the mountain?”

“I checked around it and didn’t see any place to get in to,” her mother said.

“And how many people are in this family again?”

“300,” Avery said. She knew it would’ve sounded ridiculous to them, but she didn’t care and started searching for a way in.

“Excuse me,” said the firefighter. “You said 300? Are 300 people—”

She started digging at the exit holding the oak tree. To her surprise, at this angle, the dirt she thought was undiggable caved in. It spilled out into the niche where the broken tree lay, revealing a spacious point of entry.

Forgetting about the police and the firefighters, Avery slipped through the opening and ran down the fallen oak.

“Hey, wait!” one of the paramedics warned. “It could all come down on you. Wait for us.”

Apart from where it’d collapsed months ago, most of the tunnel remained intact. She didn’t have to force her shoulder through many tight crevasses, but many of the offshoots had been demolished by the weight of the mountain, masking the air with dirt and dust.

“Avery, wait,” her father said, but she couldn’t stop. She thought the mountain couldn’t have been excavated, but she’d found a way in. If she could find her way back to the Centrum, she was sure to find surviving Arkęh:nen there. Or maybe the Grandmoeders’ Den. If it was still intact, it’d likely act as a sort of safe haven for them.

“Avery!” her mother shouted, struggling to get into the cave. One firefighter insisted that she stay behind, to which she said, “If you think I’m leaving my daughter in there, you’re denser than the rocks around us.”

Avery came up to a dead end. She searched for some type of landmark, but the cave-in had destroyed all the ropes and ladders needed to get through the tunnels. She needed to go back around and keep searching, insisting that the officers do the same.

An officer went to ask another question when they stopped quite suddenly. They, like Avery, stopped breathing to listen to the echoes of the cave. As everyone quieted down, they lifted up a single finger, asking for complete silence.

Through the wall, a faint scratching was trying to dig itself free.

Avery got to it first. She banged her hands on the soft, sand-like earth, then started digging, all the while screaming Cameron’s name. Dirt caked underneath her fingernails. Her hands froze from the wet earth. If she could save one Arkęh:nen, just one…

Hearing more and more voices begin to bloom, the firefighters took out their axes and began chopping away some of the rocks. The officer radioed for a helicopter. Avery’s mother gave up her cane as a makeshift shovel.

“ _Cameron_!”

A muffled noise burst through the rocks, and before anything else sealed them away, a very pale, very small and dirty hand struck out.

Avery held it. She didn’t need any confirmation to whom it belonged to because they knew this hand, had held this hand, and had imagined putting a gemme ring on this hand.

Cameron, their Moeder, Basil, Maywood, and about fifty other Arkęh:nen stood baffled in the tunnel. They’d all been hurt in some way, bruised and bleeding from their escape. Cameron’s Moeder held Grandmoeder Geneva on the ground. Basil’s and Maywood’s Moeder had Grandmoeder Nai standing. It looked like she didn’t want the assistance, but as help arrived, she broke out into a thankful smile.

They'd survived. They’d escaped the collapse.

Cameron fell to their knees, exasperated. They touched Avery as if making sure it was really her.

Clearing up their assumptions, Avery knelt beside them and hugged them, laughing herself to tears.


	29. Hospital Visit

Cameron had never seen such alien Autreans before. From the tunnle, they came at them like demons, wearing heavy armor and glossy masks and trying to touch them but afraid of doing so. One tried to touch Grandmoeder Nai, who’d hurt her back during the collapse. Before Avery could stop them, Basil stepped in front of her to protect her. Not understanding Arkęh:nen customs, they backed off and let Avery take charge.

Avery stayed with Cameron the entire way, translating English to Arkęh:nen and  then Arkęh:nen back into English. The Autrean “officers” wanted the sick, injured, and elderly outside first. When they wanted Cameron to leave, Cameron walked backwards deeper into the tunnle. “Not yet,” they said. “They’re still others who need help.”

“But the ambulance people can help _you_ ,” Avery urged.

They just kept shaking their head, keeping one hand on their tunnle. “Just one more hour,” they bargained, and sat next to their Moeder resting against the curve of the tunnle. They buried their head into her shoulder. As she pet their head, they barely felt what was left of her energy. She’d been zapped from all the pain she’d endured.

The night gathered triple the amount of Autreans into the forest. Strange machines Basil noted as “helicopters” circled the trees, howling in the sky. Large “cars” and “news trucks” drove up the trails and tried entering Arkęh:na without permission. They pleaded that the rest of Arkęh:na come with them, promising medicine and care for all. With the children crying and the adults coughing, the Community had no choice but to leave for this “better life.”

The Autreans gave those less adamant about leaving blankets, shoes, jackets, and food steaming with smoke. Cameron’s own Moeder, who stayed with them for most of the extraction, began talking with an Autrean, a conversation that Avery translated. After a back and forth of promises and demands, she, tempted by their charms, left, and waited at the mouth of the tunnle for her child to follow.

“Come on,” Avery said, holding out her hand. “You’ll be okay.”

“The Sun’s still too bright,” Cameron scrounged up. “It’ll hurt my eyes.”

“Your eyes will adjust, and I’ll be right beside you.”

They searched her eyes for any signs of doubt, then took her hand. All the while, they watched the darkness of the tunnle etch away as shadows became light.

Dozens of Autreans crowded the hole, which had been stickered with yellow ribbon. They called out Cameron’s name and took Avery’s hand to help her up. They held out strange devices towards her and Cameron’s face, asking questions they couldn't understand. They were persistent, talking over one another and getting louder and louder when Cameron didn’t speak up. What was their job in Autre? What were they doing with their time?

Avery stepped in front of Cameron like a knight defending her royal entourage. Some of them respected her and stepped back, many of them still wanted to hear Cameron’s voice.

Desperate to leave, Cameron turned to look for their Moeder and friends.

Basil once told them about sunrises and sunsets and how the sky turned a thousand shades at the Sun’s request. Cameron never believed him. He made up stories frequently, exaggerating to make himself look cooler because he’d been granted the privilege of going outside. Surely sunrises and sunsets weren’t as magical as he’d described.

Before Cameron, the forest dipped into a ravine they’d never noticed before, showing them distant mountains and the blinding Sun waxing over it all. Shy pinks and blues and yellows colored the sky and clouds like in Avery’s pictures in her phone, but better, richer. A deep purple tinted the mountainside. Pine trees collected fog in the south. The snow, which had just began to melt, twinkled blue and white at Cameron’s feet like magic.

They felt a cough trying to force its way out, but they couldn’t do it. Taking in the sight of the sunrise, they stayed as quiet as possible and prayed that they saw this sight as often as Avery had.

But then a blotting blackness overtook Cameron’s vision. The noise of the news reporters faded. Their legs numbed. Sense after sense failed until they lost the will to stand. Tipping sideways, they landed face-first in the snow, a bed too soft to stay awake in.

 

──✧──

 

When they woke up, it felt like someone had drugged them. Their body was heavy and their eyes were watering uncontrollably. Two tall Autreans stood above them wearing face masks. The ground kept shaking and equipment kept rattling, but neither of them seemed to mind. They kept asking Cameron questions as they fiddled with something on Cameron’s floppy arm.

Too tired to answer, they fell back asleep.

 

──✧──

 

The second time they opened their eyes, they felt cold and shivery even though a heavy blanket was keeping them warm. The high feeling returned and mixed up their thoughts. More bright lights and a man’s voice, and Cameron back fell asleep with their hands numbing to a concerning level.

 

──✧──

 

The final time and Cameron was considerably more awake and aware of their surroundings than before. The room came into focus and they could feel the ground beneath them.

They were on some sort of elevated Autrean bed, sitting up yet relaxing. The bed had a railing on either side and weird bumps running beneath the blankets. When they uncovered themselves, they found thin tubes connecting inside of them. One was blowing cold air inside of their nose. Another one buried into their arm and stung when they tried to take it out.

Panic set in. The air in this room smelled too clean. What’d happened to them? Why were there tubes inside of them? What kept beeping?

When they tried to peel off the transparent tape on their arm, a woman came in wearing blue clothes. She smiled at them like they weren’t under distress, then walked to a chair Cameron hadn’t noticed was there.

Avery was resting in it, her long legs spread out in front of her, her head tossed to one side. When the woman touched her, she startled awake, then stretched and spoke to her. Cameron heard “sick,” “breath,” “weak,” and “Cameron.”

“Avery, take these things off me,” they begged. “It’s hurting me. It’s weird.”

After speaking with Avery, the woman in blue took out a bottle filled with pebbles and offered it to Cameron.

“You need to take these,” Avery explained. Her voice dragged on every syllable, sleep stirring her words. “It’s medicine. It’ll make you feel better.”

Unconvinced yet unable to disagree with her, they took the pebbles and ate them.

Avery chuckled. “You were supposed to swallow them whole.”

The woman said something more to both of them, then exited through a large white door.

“Avery, what’s happening to me?” Cameron asked. “What is this?”

“You’re in a hospital a few hours outside of Foxfield. It’s filled with healers.”

“That woman didn’t look like a healer.” They held their head with their tubeless arm. “My head hurts.”

“I know. You’ve been here for a few days. I’ve been running back and forth between rooms trying to decipher everything between Arkęh:nen and English.”

“Where’s my Moeder, and Basil and Maywood? Where’re the Grandmoeders?”

“Almost every Arkęh:nen was sent to a hospital, and this hospital could only hold so many. They didn’t split up families, though.  Your Moeder is down the hall, and your Grandmoeder is one floor beneath us. Basil and Maywood are in Utica.”

Cameron closed their eyes in pain. They didn’t get it. Arkęh:na was so much safer and better than this. There they didn’t have to worry about separation or hospitals or eating things as opposed to swallowing them whole. They didn’t hurt this badly, only mildly so.

Avery swiveled her chair closer to Cameron’s bed. Against the fluorescent light, they saw just how deep the bags underneath her eyes were. Her blinks lasted seconds, each one longer than the last.

“Are you okay?” they asked.

She smiled. “I’m just glad you’re here. We’ve been able to help so many people from the Community, from giving them hearing aids to braces for their legs.” As she spoke, her head bobbed. “We also found out the condition for your breathing problems. You need to use an inhaler from no on. And you need glasses. Your eyesight is…really crappy.” She closed her eyes with a smile. Cameron didn’t know if she needed a moment to reorganize her thoughts or if she’d truly fallen asleep, but they didn’t want to disturb her. Even with their laughable psychic talent, they could sense how little energy she had left.

While she slept, Cameron looked out the windows overlooking “New York.” They saw what looked to be Arkęh:na’s mountain, now a mere blur of blue and green behind thousands of tall buildings. Trees, streams, roads, cars, they saw everything thriving against a bright skyline.

They didn’t have to squint to take it in.


	30. St. Agatha's

Avery never thought people would remember her name. They never could at school, and if they did, they called her Amber or Aarin, never recalling her true name. It’d taken her a few years to come to terms with her lacking charm, and by senior year of high school, if things hadn’t changed, she’d told herself not to take it so personally.

So to see not only herself smiling on national TV the next day but her name scrolling underneath it destroyed that old, horrible self-image she had of herself.

In that short week, suddenly everyone in America knew about Avery Marlow, the thirteen-year-old middle schooler from Upstate New York who’d discovered one of the world’s largest undercover secrets. They knew about her school, her interests in hiking, and her relationship with the Arkęh:nen Cameron Quinn, all of which made for “interesting topics” during her interviews.

People from all around the world wanted her interview. News trucks drove cross-country to speak with her, only her. Not her parents, not her grandparents. Her mother tried to coach her on answering interview questions in a professional manner, but with Cameron still in the hospital and all the Arkęh:nen separated in different hospitals across New England, Avery had no attention span. She’d tried to look up ways of dealing with interview anxiety, but she surmised that nobody got over it and it was terrifying every single time.

She did, however, memorize the types of questions she’d receive. About a dozen times she’d told the camera the estimate size of Arkęh:na, her friendship with Cameron that’d blossomed into something more, and the surprising taste of dandelions and wild mushrooms. Amongst all the questions, the dandelion answer attracted the most intrigue.

One month after the extraction and the interviews calmed down. They almost ceased to exist, and Avery slowly felt herself falling back into routine. She had final exams coming up, Bridget’s birthday was next week, and Cameron was now just a few blocks away.

One day after class, Avery sat on her laptop with the webcam on, video-chatting with a news station down in Manhattan. The familiar logo she’d always seen on TV made her nervous, but she’d talked with this host twice already. It untethered herself from her nerves.

“I’ve been told they’re all doing well,” Avery said. “There’re still a few in critical condition and some are still waiting to get surgeries that they need, but many of the children have been reunited with their families in group homes and homeless shelters.”

“And where are all of these _Arkęh:nen_ in relation to New York?” the news reporter asked.

Avery smirked; she hadn’t heard _that_ pronunciation before. A linguist had translated a funky spelling of the word, but to Avery, she just repeated the Arkęh:nen way of saying ‘Arkęh:nen.’ “About seventy percent of Arkęh:nen are still close to Foxfield. Some have been stationed in downtown New York, but officials have been working hard on coupling everyone back together into their Community.”

“Well, we hope everything turns out well for the future,” the news reporter said. “One more question for you, Avery, if you will: What have you been up to now? How’re you planning the new year now that you’re about to enter high school?”

“Well, after this interview’s over, I’m going to pack up a lunch and bike to Cameron’s place. We have a date together.”

The reporter laughed. “Well, let’s not hold you up. Thank you for speaking with us today.”

After saying goodbye and doing some wrap-up with the hosts, Avery turned off her video-chat and sighed heavily into her nearby energy drink. She’d hidden her shaking hands better than last week’s interview.

“That was really good,” her father said from behind the TV. He had a pot on the stove for dinner, but was also juggling between keeping on-hold with his boss and answering emails on his computer. Her mother, who stood right in front of Avery at the kitchen counter, had to deal with answering two different phone calls as well as typing something erratic on her home computer.

“New York Morning News just sent another email asking you for an interview with Cameron to see how far they’ve progressed,” she said, out of breath, “and they want you to write a blurb about…something. I don’t know. I can’t keep track of all of these emails.”

“I thought you said you liked all of this publicity,” Avery asked, gathering her lunch from out of the fridge. For today’s date, she’d packed two sandwiches, one apple, and two cracker packages. After some back and forth with Cameron, she found that this was the healthiest and most favorable snack for them.

“Not all of _this_ !” her mother said. “I’m losing it with all these—I got another one! Another one, from some news agency in Connecticut. I’m going to lose it. I did _not_ sign up for this when I decided to have a child.”

“I’m leaving, then,” Avery said. “I’m going to see Cameron.”

All too familiar with their daughter’s patterns after school, only her father waved her off. Her mother just kept biting down her nails at how to handle her underage daughter’s unrefined rise to semi-moderate fame.

Avery rolled her bike out of the driveway with her dogs jumping towards her. Pumpkin pulled on her collar as Oreo just trotted in circles, desperate to follow their owner.

“You guys can’t come with me this time,” she told them. remembering how loudly Basil had screamed at the sight of two inbounding dogs running up to pounce them. He must’ve thought them bears by how high he jumped into the air. Now whenever Avery came down to meet them, Basil would hide in the building’s bathroom, poking his head out to see if Oreo and Pumpkin would run out and kiss him to death.

Forty-five Arkęh:nen had been placed in a nearby medical and rehabilitation center in downtown Foxfield. After scrounging up spare cots and food and money donations, the facility opened their arms to a portion of Arkęh:na without much hassle. Many people didn’t believe that these cave people should’ve been given so much free care. A lot of protests in the streets wanted Avery’s family to pay for everything. But with a lot of extra protests, funding, and general human empathy, the Arkęh:nen people got the care they deserved, including Cameron and their friends.

Avery rode up to St. Agatha’s Home of Healing and parked in her usual spot. Aside from hospital care and living provisions, St. Agatha’s offered educational programs, too: history lessons, civilian training, English tests. Teachers and volunteers came in every other weekday to teach classes about the Autre world. Soon, it became a give and take; while the Arkęh:nen learned about Autrean life, the Autreans learned bits about Arkęh:na that hadn't been disclosed on the news. How the Community understood gemmes and how many languages had been mangled together to create Arkęh:nen became subjects of interest for scholars all around the globe. Suddenly more and more people wanted to speak Arkęh:nen _with_ the Arkęh:nen people, wanting to learn as much as they could.

St. Agatha’s also helped the Community learn through a more idealized lens. Outside the building grew lush gardens and walkways surrounded by a fence to keep out news reporters. The Sun rose and set over the mountains and gave the Arkęh:nen needed doses of vitamins. It took time for some of them to leave the building, but with the help of encouraging nurses, the Arkęh:nen walked out sheepishly in their donated coats and scarves. Cameron liked sitting beneath the trees near the pond, thinking and listening to this new world above their head.

When Avery entered the building, the receptionist, Mrs. Way, greeted her with a wave. “Hi, Avery. How was school today?”

“Good, thank you. Is Cameron doing okay?”

“I heard they were upset about a failed English quiz, but they’ve been talking a lot about you,” she added with a smile. “They say that since you go to school so close, you should come visit more often.”

“I visit four days a week!” she said, and walked through the revolving doors with her ID card.

Down the hall, she passed by Maywood speaking with one of her aides. She had math homework in her hands and was playfully arguing out one of her answers. After a few x-rays, her doctors had placed her in a wheelchair until her limbs gained back their needed strength. With how hard she gripped her pencil, she was either growing stronger, or her homework was overtaxing her.

“Hello,” Avery said in English. “How are you?”

“I am…good, thank you,” Maywood said. “How was… _How do you say ‘school’_?” she asked in Arkęh:nen, and Avery gave her a hint.

“ _School_ ?” she asked in English. “ _School_? It’s weird. A weird word. ‘Weird’ is weird. Our word is gooder.”

“Better,” her teacher corrected, and tapped Maywood’s paper.

“I try,” she said.

“It’s okay. Try again.”

“How’re your legs and arms?” Avery asked.

“Good…Better,” she said. “I’m in physical therapy. It’s hard, but it works.”

“That’s good. I’m glad.”

“You want Cameron,” she said, noting the jump in Avery’s knees. “They’re in the trees, the park.”

“Thanks,” she said, and ran through the doors to find them.

She stopped halfway through the doorway, finding someone much more surprising waiting for her.

Outside, sitting on the patio garden, was Bridget, her father, and Basil, all having a chatty conversation in front of blooming flowers.

Bridget looked up when the sliding door opened. “Oh. Hi.”

Her father acknowledged her with a nod, and Basil gave Avery something that could’ve been considered a wave.

“Hi?” Avery said in a question. “I didn’t know you two knew each other. At all. What’s going on?”

Basil stood up. “The doctors found something out in my blood. This’s my…family. My father, and my new sister.”

Avery gaped at them. Taking in Bridget’s father, a tall Spanish man with thick glasses, and Bridget, who always look like a supermodel in her eyes, she did see the resemblance, but she couldn’t have imagined how close an Autrean could look like an Arkęh:nen and vice versa.  

“Yeah,” Basil said, reading her face. “She said you and her are friends from school. Is this the girl you mentioned before?”

“Y-yeah, she is, and we are,” she said, still stunned.

“Families here are strange. My Moeder doesn’t want to see him, so it’s been…” He looked back at Bridget’s father, who found interest with the flowers behind him, too embarrassed to put himself into such an awkward position. “It’s been strange,” Basil concluded, “but not bad. I gained a Fader and a sister this year.”

“That’s…great,” Avery said, not knowing what else to say. “What a world. I had no idea.”

Basil kicked a loose stone off the pathway. “A lot of us have had concerns about what’s been going on, but without your help, I wouldn’t have found these people. Maywood’s getting strong legs and arms. Her wheeled chair is scary, but it’s helping.” Looking down at their new shoes, Basil stepped over and gave Avery a hug. “Thanks, for this.”

“A-and us, too,” Bridget said, sitting back down with her dad and new brother.

“No problem,” Avery said. “Bridget, I’ll see you for your birthday, right?”

“I better see you there. You’re the only one I invited.”

Avery stuck out her tongue at her, then gave them all a wave.

Cameron had a calling with the garden animals. As they sat by the pond, sticking their finger in the murky waters, every fish and duck would swim up to them without fail. They never nipped or splashed, they just watched them as curiously as Cameron watched them. Cameron enjoyed them so much that since being at St. Agatha’s, they must’ve gone through four bags of fish and duck food.

They were finally wearing their glasses with the thick lenses in them. They’d refused most of their nurses’ care, but when they’d put on their special glasses, they began to sob, throwing themselves on the ground like a child. Apparently, they had such horrible vision, they’d never seen the individual hairs on a person’s head before.

With their vision cleared, Cameron looked up to Avery and smiled. “ _Hey._ ”

“ _Hi_.” She sat beside them on the grass. “ _Did you already feed them?”_

“ _Yeah. I feed them every morning and evening before they fly up to that tree up there_.” They leaned against her. “ _Speak to me in English_.”

“ _Are you ready for that_?”

“ _No, but my teacher wants me to practice. It’s so much harder when I’m not speaking with you_.”

“ _If it makes you feel better, I’m learning Spanish at school, and I don’t like it, either. It doesn’t come to me as naturally as Arkęh:nen_.”

“ _Basil was telling me that. The Bridget girl is half-Spanish. Sometimes she speaks it with her Fader. He really does look like Basil_.”

“ _I know_.” She took Cameron’s hand in hers, then said in English, “Is this better?”

“…I think,” they said in their best English. “It’s hard to understand.”

“I know.”

Two of Cameron’s ducks quacked and swam up to the edge of the pond. Cameron twiddled their fingers in the water, enticing them. “But I teach…others about Arkęh:na, and they want to know. That’s what I worry about, I had worried about. I didn’t think people would like us. Now everyone wants to know it, even though we can not go back.”

“I heard they’re going to try and salvage what’s left of the mountain and open it up to the public for research and exploration. When that’s ready, you can get back your gemmes.”

“Good. Even though they don’t work with me, I still like them.”

“Yes, but you can’t live there anymore, got it? You can’t hide back underground.”

Cameron pouted and rolled on their butt. “I could. You’d never find me.”

“But then you’d never be able to see the ducks anymore. You wouldn’t see sunrises or planes. You wouldn't see me—”

“Planes!” they said with a jolt. “How scary! How do they fly? My teacher says they’re people in them. She lies?”

“No, there’re usually dozens of people in planes.”

Cameron blew out their cheeks. “So why do they make the loud noise? How do they fly without flapping wings like a duck?”

“I’m not sure. We should look it up sometime.”

“Can we do it now? I can tell Maywood and Basil. They wanted to know.”

“Sure.” Avery opened up her phone, showing off the first selfie she and Cameron had taken at this very pond, and searched for the right words.

**Author's Note:**

> ✧Thank you for reading ! ✧
> 
> I post a new chapter every Saturday at 7:30pm EST. I make upload announcements on my tumblr ‘makoninah’, so be sure to follow me [there](http://makoninah.tumblr.com)!
> 
> Also: This’s the first time I’ve had the confidence to post original fiction onto the Internet, so I’d love to hear critiques from you so I can better my writing for the future! Things like typos, clarity suggestions, and general grammar corrections are appreciated !


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